LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party has reacted sharply to Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s criticism of Sindh government and accused the party of having formed a nexus with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf to save its government in centre.

PPP Larkana city president Khair Mohammad Shaikh, general secretary Aijaz Leghari and others said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club on Monday that JUI-F’s recent track record laid the fact bare that its actions had always benefited PTI.

The party recently lent support to a PTI candidate in Badin, they said, apparently in response to JUI-F Sindh general secretary Rashid Mehmood Soomro’s criticism of PPP in a recent media talk.

They said that it was only PPP that had raised voice against power outages and acute shortage of irrigation water and held large demonstrations to register its resentment while the JUI-F chose to keep mum over Sindh’s burning issues.

They asked Maulana Rashid to tell the nation how many demonstrations his party had held against outages in Sindh and why it had remained completely absent from protests against water shortage.

The PPP, they said, had staged demonstrations against PTI while the JUI-F remained silent. It had been proved now that the party leadership’s decision of deferring decision on resignations from assembly was right while JUI-F was stressing to step down, they said.

Referring to JUI-F leadership, they said those who were not able to win even a union council seat were now talking about launching movements. PPP had a history of holding big public meetings in Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana under the banner of Pakistan Democratic Movement and the party recently staged huge demonstrations against Irsa and drastic cut in Sindh’s financial allocations while others remained tight-lipped over the issues, they said.

Perhaps JUI-F had lost its way on road to Islamabad where it was to hold protests against PTI and that was why the party had now announced launching agitation against PPP in Sindh, they said.

They said the JUI-F had suddenly wound up long march in Islamabad as it could not live outside power orbit. The party leadership was offering its shoulder to PTI government.

About violent protest outside Bahria Town Karachi, they said the PPP was a federal party and those who had raised slogans against the country during violent protest in BTK would definitely face legal action.

They said that attack on Bahria Town had in fact inflicted damage on people of Sindh. “We are not afraid of protest campaigns as these are not new for us and we had ourselves been part of such protests in past.”

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2021