KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) on Sunday agreed that the Pakistan Peoples Party government was promoting ethnic politics in the province that would have “devastative consequences”.

The two parties also observed that the recently passed Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2021 would further widen the rural-urban divide in the province and ignite hatred among people.

The consensus emerged during a meeting between JI-Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman and PSP chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal at the former’s Idara Noor-i-Haq headquarters. PSP president Anis Kaimkhani and others were also present.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, JI’s Hafiz Naeem said that his party was willing and open to take on board every political stakeholder against the PPP’s policies in Sindh.

Also read: New LG bill tightens Sindh govt’s control over local bodies

“The PPP always chants the mantra of the constitution but now it has attempted to violate the same constitution. The ruling party recently bulldozed all rules of business in the Sindh Assembly. The Jamaat demands an empowered local government set-up for Karachi. The PPP should have returned the institutions taken away from the local governments,” he said.

He warned that the PPP’s moves had been legalising the politics of hatred and creating a rural-urban divide.

Speaking on the occasion, PSP leader Kamal endorsed the JI chief’s thoughts and said more than five years ago he had warned that certain parties would again exploit ethnic politics for their petty gains.

“I see the LG law as a gateway to the politics of ethnicity and hatred,” he said. “We already have suffered a lot due to this hatred and divide. This law would revive it. You are not making a law, but signing a document to create new terrorists.”

He said that the chief minister had seized all the monetary resources and powers to themselves in a sheer violation of the Constitution and against the spirit of the 18th Amendment.

“Until the powers and resources are taken away from the chief ministers and passed on to the people at street level, the integrity of Pakistan will be in jeopardy. The state must stop the PPP before it’s too late. Sindh province is not the dynasty of the PPP,” said Mr Kamal.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2021