HYDERABAD: Lashing out at the federal government for the arrest of Sindh Assembly member and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Faryal Talpur from hospital, PPP central information secretary and Senator Maula Bux Chandio has said the prime minister (PM) would fail to win people’s support with such decisions.

The PM would have to give up short-sightedness in order to run his government, he said while speaking to reporters after offering Eid prayers in Qasimabad.

He said it was the prime minister who first sent [ousted prime minister] Nawaz Sharif’s daughter and then [former president] Asif Ali Zardari’s sister to jail.

He argued that even the common man was provided relief, but Ms Talpur, who was sick, was sent to jail by the present government. “If Imran Khan is serious in running his government, he and his government will have to shun their short-sightedness,” he remarked.

He said Pakistan was facing a situation of political victimisation and now women were being put in jail in the name of accountability. Ms Talpur, he said, was his leader and she was under treatment because doctors wanted to keep her in hospital, but she had been sent to prison in the middle of the night. “Khan Sahib. You might be inspired by European society, but people like me live in Pakistan where values are adhered to,” he remarked and said Nawaz Sharif had committed excesses against the PPP, but still the party did not support the decision of keeping his daughter Maryam Nawaz behind bars.

“If Bilawal Bhutto’s tone was harsh today, it has a history,” he said. He said the PPP chairman had seen his mother being assassinated, his grandmother being baton-charged and now his paternal aunt was jailed. If all thoroughfares were closed, the situation would lead to “accidents”, he said, adding that Zia created the same situation. If Imran Khan wanted to avoid an “accident”, he should avoid closing all doors.

He said rulers were enjoying luxuries with people’s money, adding that the present rulers had outdone their past counterparts in taking loans in just the first year of their rule. Tsunami, he said, was proving to be a message of death and price hike was increasing.

He maintained that every worker of the PPP and patriotic Pakistani remained committed to the Kashmir cause and stood with Kashmiri people. He said that barring a few politicians all were united on one platform. Giving the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) a rap over shameful attendance in the joint session of parliament held on the Kashmir issue, he said the rulers were talking about Kashmir, but they should see what they had actually done about it.

He remarked that Imran Khan was yearning for success of Narendra Modi in elections, who was known as butcher of Gujarat. Imran used to say that negotiations would begin once Modi was elected and there would be a change, he added.

Chandio reminded the PM that Narendra Modi had been elected and what Modi had done to Kashmir. He commented that crutches did not help run leadership and governments.

He said the government always wanted the opposition to support its decisions, which the opposition leadership, including Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif, did. “What else we should do?” he asked.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2019