DADU: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, reacting to Governor Imran Ismail’s repeated statements regarding appointment of Barrister Murtaza Wahab as the administrator of Karachi, said that it was prerogative of the CM to choose anyone for the post. He said all institutions should work within their own domain and refrain from interfering in others’ domain.

Mr Shah was speaking to the media on the first day of Eid (July 21) in his ancestral village Wahur.

In reply to a question about the governor’s reservations over such a development, the CM said: “The governor and PTI have no right to raise any objection to the appointment [of Murtaza Wahab] as the Karachi administrator.

He said PPP believed in every institution’s right to work within its domain. Other political parties should also behave and work as per the Constitution and law while exercising their authority, powers etc, he added.

Emerging anti-PPP alliance

When his comment was sought on PTI and other opposition parties’ reported efforts to form an anti-PPP alliance before the upcoming local government elections, the chief minister said he knew nothing about such things.

“However, I will welcome if Prime Minister Imran Khan intends to see his party’s alliance with other entities of Sindh ... at least the PM will bother to visit Sindh under this pretext,” he remarked.

He recalled that the PM had never spent “a single night” in this province. He also remarked that there were only those parties and groups available to the PTI whom Mr Khan had long been describing as anti-social and anti-state.

But PTI and its chief must remember that it’s the masses in Sindh who would choose their leadership and they had always chosen PPP, which had defeated all its opponent alliances in the past, he said.

Mr Shah also referred to recent by-elections in Sindh in the recent past.

He said PPP would also form its government at the centre after the next general elections.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2021