MUZAFFARGARH: Former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar addressed her constituents here in her first interaction since 2013 with the people of her constituency where thousands, including a large number of women, gathered to listen to her.

She attributed her address to the UN and becoming the foreign minister to the votes she had won at that time. She claimed that her father had worked for the people. In a bilingual address in both Seraiki and Urdu, the ex-minister said voters gave her respect and made her an MNA twice without even asking for votes.

She further said she was not contesting the polls this time, but her brother Malik Ghulam Raza Rabbani Khar was a candidate for NA-183 and she had come to thank the people of the area for always supporting her family. She remembered the days of the 2010 floods and claimed houses here had been damaged.

She said Muzaffargarh district was not a backward area because it had produced a foreign minister. She said she had met Hillary Clinton several times and put the district on the map. The PPP spent Rs15 billion on mega projects of canal lining and gas in the district, she added.

Ms Khar criticised the PTI and said PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was the young leader the country needed, not Imran Khan. Later, she requested the people to vote for Raza Khar and Alamdar Abbas.

Raza said he was a foreign graduate and had jumped into politics to serve the people. His position in the area was strong as compared to the PTI’s or independent candidates. During the previous general elections, his father and then PPP candidate Malik Noor Rabbani Khar had announced he would not contest the next elections. This was Ms Khar’s first address in her constituency since March 2013 when she had laid the foundation of canal lining at Mahmood Kot during the PPP government.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2018