SANGHAR: Former president and co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday that he was not just fighting to safeguard the resources of Sindh, but of the entire country.

With the help of support from the Pakhtun, Baloch, Punjabis and Sindhis, the PPP would win this fight and would not let the country be divided further, he said.

Mr Zardari was speaking at a big rally in Tando Adam that was attended by PPP leaders, legislators, workers and supporters.

He pointed out that Pakistan came into existence through a peaceful political struggle and not through an armed campaign. “‘They’ didn’t create Pakistan, but our forefathers did,” he said.

“Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who studied at the institution set up by my forefathers, created this country through a peaceful dialogue,” he said.

Former president says ‘drama’ being created to make changes in 18th Amendment

The rulers of the time couldn’t foil a plot hatched by the Hindus and the country was dismembered within 30 years of its creation, the former president said.

Apparently alluding to the corruption cases instituted against him and his sister Faryal Talpur, he said: “All this drama is being created to make changes in the 18th Amendment. But the PPP would resist all such moves.” He said that after usurping other institutions even the Civil Aviation Authority was being shifted to Islamabad, where new facilities and offices would be built for it. Huge expenses would be incurred and kickbacks would change hands. In the meantime, people in the organisation’s Karachi offices would be laid off.

He said that his party formulated several budgets and tried to serve the masses. When he was the president of the country, the salary of government workers was enhanced and their pension was also increased.

In his speech on the occasion, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said his province was being deprived of its constitutional rights by the federal government.

Sindh produced more natural gas than any other province, but now it was being deprived of its due share from the gas reserves, he said.

Similarly, the province generated more revenue than any other province, but here again it was not being provided its due share.

Mr Shah said that he had been fighting to safeguard the rights of Sindh’s people and would continue to do so.

Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, MNA Shazia Atta Marri, Jam Madad Ali, Nasir Shah, Aajiz Dhamrah and Hari Ram were prominent among the leaders who attended the rally.

Also on Saturday, Mr Zardari inaugurated a private medical college set up by PPP Senator Imam Din Shoqeen.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2019