PESHAWAR, Dec 14: The Pakistan People’s Party will never sacrifice people’s interests for coming into power, nor will it allow anyone, including General Pervez Musharraf, to harm the interests of any province for the benefit of a few feudal lords of the Punjab.

This was stated by the party’s provincial president Rahimdad Khan at a press conference here on Tuesday. Referring to President Pervez Musharraf’s statement that parties opposed to the Kalabagh dam would not be allowed to come to power, he warned that his party would not allow any pro-Kalabagh leader to land in the NWFP.

He said that only a few aristocrats of the Punjab were demanding construction of the dam and the people of the Punjab should be aware of the elements who were working on a plan to create a wedge between them and other people of the country.

The PPP leader said that President Musharraf’s stance on Kalabagh would create a situation identical to the 1970s crisis. In response to a question, he said that the PPP was a symbol of federation and would never allow dictators to create misgivings among people of the four provinces. “We would fight for the national cause,” he added.

He said that during the 30-year design life of the proposed Kalabagh dam, it would generate 1,500 megawatt electricity while its lake would have a storage capacity of six million acre feet of water. In contrast, he said, the Bhasha dam with a utility period of 100 years would generate 3,600 megawatt electricity and would have a nine million acre feet reservoir capacity.

He claimed that another location, only 16 kms from Gilgit, was feasible a dam as, according to experts, it would have a storage capacity of 35 million acre ft and it would generate 15,000 megawatt electricity.

He said that the PPP and other democratic parties would raise the issue in parliament and four provincial assemblies and would also launch public contact campaigns in the country to mobilise people against the Kalabagh project.

When asked to clarify PPP Punjab’s stance on Kalabagh, Mr Khan said that all chapters of his party had the same stance on all issue of national interest.

Mr Rahimdad claimed that in 1994 when the PPP was in power, representatives of Sindh, the NWFP and Balochestan had opposed the Kalabagh dam during a meeting of Irsa and only the representative of Punjab had boycotted the meeting. He claimed that most parts of Peshawar, Mardan and Swabi districts would be inundated if Kalabagh dam was built and this would destroy the agricultural economy of the province.