LARKANA: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Sindh general secretary Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro, and his brother, Maulana Nasir Mehmood Soomro, who is the party’s Larkana district emir, called on Sardar Ameer Bakhsh Bhutto, in Mirpur Bhutto on Monday to discuss a strategy to hand a defeat to Pakistan Peoples Party candidates for the Larkana seats of the national and Sindh assemblies in the upcoming general elections.

Former Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) MPA from Larkana Moazzim Abbasi also accompanied the JUI-F leaders.

Sardar Ameer Bakhsh Bhutto, Moazzim Abbasi and Rashid Mehmood Soomro were the key components of the Larkana Awami Ittehad (LAI) that had defeated PPP’s candidate for the provincial assembly seat of Larkana in the previous general elections. Sardar Bhutto was the Pakistan

Tehreek-i-Insaf vice president but he has since left the party and is yet to decide about his support for any other entity.

A recent meeting of JUI-F Larkana’s election review committee had decided to lend support to LAI if the latter fielded its candidates on Larakana and Qambar-Shahdadkot seats of the two houses.

The Larkana district has two National Assembly and four Sindh Assembly seats.

Sources say that the Sindh JUI-F was ready to throw its weight behind all anti-PPP parties and groups in the province to ensure that the PPP does not become powerful enough to form its government for a fourth time.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2023