MITHI: Hundreds of members of the Bheel and some other local communities gathered at the venue of a public meeting jointly organised by two independent candidates — Haimraj Bheel (NA-222) and Abdul Ghani Khoso (PS-55) — along with Advocate Lajpat Bheel in Islamkot on Sunday to express their full support to the candidates in the July 25 elections.

The audience vowed to reject both Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) candidates in their Nagarparkar constituencies.

The candidates told the audience that the parties mostly ignored heads of the local communities in the awarding of their tickets for the election. Instead, they added, they [the parties] decided to impose outsiders on these communities whose strength was in thousands in each constituency.

They said for the very reason, they revolted against the party leaderships to contest the election as independent candidates.

The candidates also recalled that while sitting in the assemblies, these parties’ lawmakers never bothered to raise their voice on the real issues of their constituencies. These leaders had left the people of this desert region to die of hunger and starvation, they added.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2018