KARACHI: Three major opposition parties in Sindh on Saturday took a step forward to launch a joint movement against the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Act 2021 when they formed a steering committee with representation from all major parties to devise a strategy for their future line of action.

The steering committee is comprised of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Grand Democratic Alliance.

An announcement in this regard was made by Pakistan Muslim League-Functional leader Sardar Abdul Rahim, who would represent the GDA in the committee.

He said that the first meeting of the committee would be held on Monday (tomorrow) to devise its initial plan to launch a movement against what he called a “black law” across the province.

Steering committee comprising MQM, PTI and GDA to meet tomorrow

In the nine-member committee, three members from each party, Khwaja Izharul Hasan, Muhammad Hussain and Jawed Hanif would represent the MQM-P; Khurram Sher Zaman, Bilal Ghaffar and retired Wing Commander Q. Hakeem the PTI while the GDA would be represented by Sardar Rahim, Hasnain Mirza and Arif Jatoi.

“We are meeting tomorrow [Monday] at the Functional House to share opinion and devise our initial plan,” said Sardar Rahim.

He said all the major parties of the province were in agreement that the Sindh government had snatched the rights of the people through the amended LG law.

The opposition of Sindh, he said, had found that every democratic party, which believed in devolution of power and a strong system for the local government, was ready to join hands in the larger interest of the people Sindh.

“The steering committee would come up with a timeline and detailed schedule of the opposition movement,” he said. “It would also assign different parties to coordinate with different segments of the society including lawyers, businessmen, intellectuals and labourers. A detailed programme of the protest demonstrations would also be chalked out in all major centres of Sindh.”

He said that the opposition parties despite having political differences had agreed to move together in the larger interest of the province.

He warned that if the local government law was implemented with its current status it would ruin municipal structures of the province and put burden of its failure on the elected representatives.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2021