SUKKUR: Former PPP ally Sardar Ali Gohar Mahar, who went over to the Grand Democratic Alliance just a couple of days before, has said that Pakistan Peoples Party has become ‘Faryal League’ which has usurped gunny bags and deprived growers of fair price for their sugar cane produce.

The Sindh government swallowed up royalty paid by industrial units in Ghotki for ten years, which came to Rs10 billion and returned nothing to the town even during its past five year rule, said Mr Mahar at separate meetings with notables of different areas who called on him at his residence in Khangarh near Ghotki on Saturday.

He said that they arranged a big public meeting in Daharki town where Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari delivered a speech but did not announce any package for the people of Ghotki district.

“I said goodbye to PPP because I had joined hands with the party under the delusion that it was a party of Z.A. Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto but was shocked to learn the PPP had turned into ‘Faryal League’ which cannot even give water to people not to speak of other facilities,” he said.

He said the party sold out gunny bags meant for growers and deprived them of reasonable price for sugar cane. “We stuck with the party for five years but it failed to do anything for the district,” he said.

Mr Mahar said that Musharraf regime was far better than the PPP government under which he was district nazim and carried out record development works in the district. The PPP had given nothing to people except hunger and rising graph of poverty and passed on all benefits to a select number of people, he said.

He said that he had asked his cousin Mohammad Bux Mahar to leave the PPP and told him if he contested election as an independent candidate he would get him elected unopposed.

He said that he went to Pano Akil where people accorded him a warm welcome and Sardar Pupoo Khan Chachar withdrew papers in his favour. Moulvi Sahiban of Halejvi Sharif were also ready to stand aside, he said.

He informed notables and elders of his tribe that Mohammad Bux Mahar had sought two days time to decide whether he would remain with PPP or contest election as independent candidate. A committee of notables might also be formed to meet him and persuade him to quit the PPP, he said.

The notables including Ismail Khan Gabol, Abdul Razzak Gabol, Sardar Khalil Khan Gabol, chairman of Lohi union council Khushi Mohammad Mohtem, Abdul Qadir Shar, Nabi Bux Malik, Mohammad Luqman Pitafi, Mohammad Yousuf Pitafi, Arbelo Fakir Mangrio and Hidayatullah Pitafi among 150 others pledged to support Sardar Ali Gohar Mahar in upcoming election.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Bux Mahar rejected reports about his quitting the PPP and joining the GDA.

He told journalists outside the election tribunal in Sukkur on Saturday that Ali Gohar had come to him and invited him to join the GDA but he politely declined the offer. Mahar family was one but its members had different political orientations, he said.

He said that he would contest whoever took field against him and his party, PPP, would win majority seats in upcoming general election.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2018