THATTA: Pakistan Mus-lim League-Nawaz leaders, former senator Nihal Hashmi, former MNA Kheal Das Kohistani, Raees Rasool Bux Jakhro and others, were warmly welcomed by a large number of party workers and supporters when they arrived in Gharo on Saturday to address a public meeting.

In their speeches, the leaders recounted development works carried out during several PML-N tenures and party’s achievements, including restoration of peace in Karachi after years of lawlessness and bloodshed.

They lashed out at Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which ruled Sindh for about 15 years, over its failure to deliver and for leaving millions of 2022 flood-hit people helpless.

Nihal Hasmi told the audience that [PPP foun-der chairman] Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto were competent premiers and sincere leaders but the current PPP leadership was deceiving the masses by using their [ZAB’s and BB’s] names to seek votes for it. “In the wake of natural disasters, people of Thatta were left helpless as PPP’s elected representatives never turned up to rehabilitate them,” he claimed, and held out the assurance that the PML-N candidate, Raees Rasool Bux Jakhro, would sincerely and heartily serve the local population when he would win his seat in the Feb 8 elections. “[PPP Chairman] Bilawal will not be coming to Thatta because he is currently enjoying delicious foods of Punjab,” he said on a lighter note, and that expressed his confidence that PML-N was set to route PPP in Punjab.

Nihal Hashmi, Kheal Das Kohistani address public meeting in Gharo, tell people Nawaz will rid Sindh of multiple crises

He said [PML-N supremo] Nawaz Sharif was fully capable to rid Sindh of the persisting multiple crises.

Kheal Das Kohistani said that PPP had given nothing to the Thatta district in its 15-year rule. He said that Nawaz Sharif was more concerned about miseries of Sindh’s people than were “corrupt rulers in the previous provincial governments”.

Recounting achievements of Nawaz-led PML-N government in the past, he said that it had given the historic Water Accord in 1991, launched anti-dacoit operation in the riverine areas of Sindh and took measures for the restoring peace in Karachi. If voted to power, Nawaz Sharif would steer country out of crises and put it on the path of progress as he had done in the past, added Kohistani.

Pro-PML-N independent candidate for the PS-76 Ghorabari seat Ayaz Shah Bukhari, said that people of Thatta were supporting him and the PML-N because they had challenged the “corrupt rulers of Sindh”.

“PPP-led rulers of Sindh had sold out the province’s resources to business tycoons and builder mafia to amass money, he alleged.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2024