KARACHI: Holding responsible successive governments of the three major parties and the current Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government for the country’s economic and security problems, Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party chief Dr Qadir Magsi on Saturday demanded a new social contract to empower common man into power and remove what he called “political mafia” from the democratic system.

Speaking at the Meet the Press programme of the Karachi Press Club, he was very clear about his thoughts against mainstream political parties such as the PPP, PML-N and PTI and accusing their leadership of coming into power after making deals with dictators and compromising the rights of the common man.

“From Imran Khan to [Asif Ali] Zardari and to Shehbaz Sharif everyone has proved himself a failure,” he said. “Now it’s time for a new social contract based on ground realities and honesty.”

He continued: “You can’t revive economy, bring stability and restore peace with the leadership which is disconnected with the people. Now it’s time to directly engage people for the new social contract. A common man regardless of his ethnic background has not contributed to the mess we are facing today. It’s the mess of dictators and these fake leaders.”

He also accused the PPP of “colluding” with those wanted to divide Sindh just for the sake of its vested interests and “unjust rule in the province”.

About digital census, he said that it was just one example that was aimed at compromising the rights of Sindh. “We will not accept the results of this fake census. We have been raising voice against this conspiracy but unfortunately no one is paying any heed.”

He said that the condition of the computerised national identity cards had been done away with and immigrants were not being counted as otherwise required.

This, he said, showed that the census was being carried out to manipulate the numbers without taking into consideration ground realities, data and facts.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2023