HYDERABAD: Accusing the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in Sindh of being “biased and racist”, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Saturday announced the holding of its public meeting here on Jan 18. It warned that if ever Sindh was divided, PPP’s “biased and racial policies” would be responsible for it.

Speaking at a press conference held at the party’s district office, MQM-P deputy convener MNA Kanwar Naveed Jamil recalled that it was PPP that had introduced the quota system in 1970s to divide urban and rural population.

He said MQM always adopted the culture of Sindh, and added that it was he who, as the Hyderabad district nazim, had named a flyover after Hosh Mohammad Sheedi and got Sindh’s cultural heritage preserved. A monument of Sheedi was also built.

MNA Jamil said that a road network had been laid during the district government system but between 2010 and 2018, PPP government neglected Karachi and Hyderabad and the present destruction of Hyderabad city was reflective of its “biased” policies.

He said it was criminal negligence of the government that people of Hyderabad were facing all kinds of problems today.

He noted that strongholds of MQM were hit by insanitation, collapsed sewerage system, broken roads and unending loadshedding of gas and electricity. He said despite MQM’s best efforts and announcement for a general university in Hyderabad, PPP was demonstrating slackness in its establishment.

Mr Jamil claimed that PPP government stopped funds for the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) to paralyse it; the trauma centre in the city was closed and its machinery was shifted somewhere else; a housing scheme was launched by the district government but the money of its allottees was utilised somewhere else; and child, cardiac and kidney care hospitals were approved but they were shifted to some other places.

He said PPP punished people of Hyderabad for electing MQM-P, adding that MQM-P was tolerating all kinds of excesses by the present Sindh government.

In order to raise people’s grievances, MQM-P had convened a public meeting in the city on Jan 18.

Mr Jamil said that his party supported across the board accountability and demanded that those who had looted the national wealth be brought to justice. He said according to an estimate, the country’s Rs94,000bn had been shifted abroad.

He said MQM-P had some grievances against the federal government but currently it had no option other than remaining with the PTI government.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2019