KARACHI: Lashing out at the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leadership for conspiring against his government after witnessing a referendum-like rally against the federal government, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday said that the provincial assembly would ask the centre to withdraw the controversial presidential ordinance regarding Sindh’s islands.

Speaking at a press conference here at CM House, Mr Shah said that his government had already rejected the Pakistan Islands Development Authority (PIDA) ordinance promulgated by the president to “illegally occupy islands in Sindh and Balochistan”.

“I am surprised that the federal government, knowing that the Sindh government has withdrawn its permission letter, has started inviting Expression of Interest for development of the islands,” he said in response to a question.

He said that the provincial assembly would be meeting today to ask the federal government to withdraw the ordinance.

CM sees conspiracies hatched against his govt after anti-govt show in Karachi

In reply to another question, Mr Shah said that the PTI government had failed to achieve revenue recovery targets and due to this reason it had massively curtailed provinces’ shares in revenue.

“The PTI government at the centre has plunged the provincial government into a financial crisis,” he said.

Expresses gratitude of PDM leadership

At the outset of his press conference, Mr Shah thanked the leadership of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for providing its platform to pay tribute to the “martyrs of Karsaz” who lost their lives in a suicide attack on Oct 18, 2007.

He also thanked people of the province for attending the rally in large numbers to not only pay tribute to the victims of the Karsaz attack but also register their protest against the “incompetent” federal government of the PTI.

Referring to the arrest of retired Captain Safdar and registration of a case against him and others for violating the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum, he recalled that in 2013 and 2017 PTI chief Imran Khan and his workers had violated the sanctity of the Mazar-i-Quaid, but now they were trying to implicate others.

He said that Maryam Nawaz, Capt Safdar and others went to the Quaid’s mausoleum to pay their respect on Oct 18. “I have serious reservations over the way Mr Safdar was arrested,” he said and added it was a sheer violation of chadar aur char diwari.

He said that PTI MPAs and a federal minister had started playing tricks right from 3pm on Oct 18 to the evening of Oct 19.

“This shows that the PTI leadership was quite upset, perplexed and went berserk when they witnessed an unprecedented public meeting was held against their inefficient government at the centre and they started hatching different conspiracies,” Mr Shah said.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2020