HYDERABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf senior vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Saturday that he was witnessing inevitable change in Sindh in near future once people decided to say no to further exploitation by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

He said at a public meeting in Tandojam that like Tharparkar, his constituency, which had broken the ‘arrow’ into pieces in 2013 election and Badin that did the same last night, all people would have to take their destiny into their own hands.

He said that Sindh’s intellectuals, students, farmers and peasants were looking for change in their lives but they would have to remember that nobody would come from outside to change their destiny unless people themselves demonstrated their resolve to improve their lives. Sindh would see change once people decided not to allow anyone to exploit them any longer, he said.

He said that he could see clouds of change on the skies of Sindh on the basis of his 36 years of experience in politics. “This crowd is in fact a droplet of this change and such droplets of hope will eventually become a flood of political change,” he remarked.

Qureshi said that if he had been in the place of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari he would have returned to Sindh after discontinuing the long march because a breach had been caused in Sindh’s politics. This breach was widening further by the hour and everyone knew once it happened it became difficult to plug it, he said.

He said that he would share his assessment of the party’s Huqooq-i-Sindh march, which started from Kamo Shaheed and would conclude in Karachi and recommend to the PTI chairman Imran Khan that the party should approach Sindh with a comprehensive strategy during the remaining 1.5 years of its constitutional term.

He said that PTI would thereafter assign targets to party workers and leaders and when the targets were accomplished Sindh would witness change by 2023.

He said that he had been hearing about record prosperity in Sindh for the past 15 years but he had witnessed now that practically nothing had changed except that a few people’s treasures had increased manifold.

He said that since people of Sindh like Khawand Bux Jahejo, PTI’s candidate who had lost to PPP’s Sharjeel Inam Memon in 2018 general election, were not getting their rights PTI decided to launch a march for them. Even PPP supporters were being deprived of their rights in Sindh, he added.

He said that the prime minister would soon be visiting Hyderabad to lay foundation stone for Hyderabad-Sukkur motorway and push for legislation to establish a university in Hyderabad.

Earlier at a press conference, Qureshi said that PTI had taken practical steps for the creation of south province in Punjab otherwise no political party including PPP and PML-N had taken such bold measures.

He said that federal government was ready to undertake in writing that Bundal and Dingi islands would remain property of Sindh but it should be allowed to develop them.

He said that if Bilawal was serious about creation of South Punjab, he should support the constitutional amendment which PTI wanted to move because the ruling party lacked two-third majority for the amendment.

He said that Bilawal did not even reply to the letter he wrote to him on this issue which reflected PPP’s seriousness. He had learned that PPP’s long march was being cut short in view of the reports that they would not get any response in central Punjab and the route of the march might also be changed, he said.

He said that some forces wanted to destabilise Pakistan, which had successfully organised Pakistan Super League and now Aussies were playing in Rawalpindi. The terrorist activities like suicide blast in Peshawar were carried out to dispel the impression that stability had returned to Pakistan, he said.

Zaidi speaks at Hyderabad rally

PTI Sindh president and Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Syed Ali Zaidi, who spoke at the Haqooq-i-Sindh march rally at Hyder Chowk after Qureshi had to leave for his official engagements, said that people of Sindh would have to get rid of Zardari family otherwise corruption would not end.

Zaidi said that PTI’s march would enter Karachi from Quaidabad where important announcements would be made. Shah Mehmood Qureshi would lead march in Karachi, he said.

He said that Bilawal was concerned more about other provinces than his own. PTI knew what Zardari league was doing in Sindh.

PM’s special assistant on Sindh affairs Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim said that Imran Khan forged ties with Russia, Iran, Turkey and Malaysia. The 18th Amendment had weakened the federation, he said, adding that PPP was spreading hatred to use Sindh card.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022