LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Senator Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that both Jamiat UIema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Mian Nawaz Sharif are looking for excuses to get elections delayed as the parties have become unpopular in their strongholds.

Khuhro said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club here on Saturday that both the leaders were afraid of losing peoples’ support. Maulana said recently in a speech in Larkana that peaceful atmosphere was required for elections and disclosed that he was being stopped from electioneering, which boiled down to the conclusion that he was trying to ‘escape’ from elections, he said.

He questioned was the Maulana contesting elections on somebody else’s dictation. As for Nawaz Sharif, he had been noticeably tight-lipped about elections since his return from self-exile and had showed no enthusiasm for the polls, he said.

He said that Nawaz Sharif did not appear serious about elections. His recent visit to Balochistan too looked like a personal activity as he chose to distance himself from people, he said, adding contrary to them, PPP had taken a clear stand on the election date and it would not accept any change in it.

Recalling PML-N’s past politics, Khuhro said the party had added the rollback of the 18th Amendment to its manifesto. Imran Khan, too, was against the amendment, but the

PPP wanted to strengthen provinces and make them financially strong through the amendment, he said.

He said that any move to discourage or stop its implementation would be tantamount to weakening the provinces. The departments which were to be devolved under the amendment had not yet been decentralised, he said.

He said that Nawaz Sharif was a strong advocate for Kalabagh Dam and also a critic of the NFC award and the 18th Amendment. The NFC award had been delayed despite the population census as the provinces’ share in the award would continue to increase, he said. The PPP would enhance the provinces’ share in NFC award after coming to power, he said.

Khuhro said that formation of alliances was peoples’ right and was optimistic that people would once again stamp on ‘arrow’ to send PPP candidates to parliament. The PPP had buried the politics based on sectarianism, hatred or ethnicism, he said and cited statement of the party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in this context.

He was confident that the PPP would return victorious in the upcoming polls after inflicting defeat on all anti-PPP alliances and hit out at Larkana Awami Ittehad whose candidate Moazzim Abbasi had defeated PPP’s candidates in Larkana city in the last elections. The Ittehad was getting weaker after Unnars had joined the PPP, he claimed.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2023