LARKANA: Jamaat-i-Islami Sindh emir Mohammad Hussain Mehanti has said that the Pakistan Peoples Party has committed organised corruption in all departments during its 15-year rule and made the evil practice a culture that helped PPP leaders and their cronies fill their coffers with ill-gotten money at the cost of public.

Mehanti said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club here on Tuesday that law and order conditions were the worst while uncontrolled inflation, rising tariffs imposed on electricity, gas and oil in addition to rising graph of unemployment had broken the back of the poor. Instead of even a semblance of development and growth over the past 70 years, the economy had nose-dived in all sectors of economy, he said.

He claimed his party would capture a large number of seats in Karachi and Sindh as the party had fielded 105 candidates for provincial assembly (PA) seats and 51 for National Assembly seats. Despite having obtained majority votes in local bodies’ elections, the PPP and Election Commission of Pakistan manipulated numbers jointly and deprived them of their mandate, he said.

He said that people knew Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan well and would not vote for it this time. “We did not opt to be part of political alliances as all the parties, which were part of Pakistan Democratic Movement, have one way or the other enjoyed power,” he said.

He said in answer to a question that how could Main Nawaz Sharif justify running for the office of prime minister after remaining in power five times.

About conviction of Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi in cipher case, he said that justice should be for all. It was injustice to deprive Tehreek-i-Insaf Pakistan of its electoral symbol and disallow lawyers to meet the jailed leaders, he said.

He warned all institutions to stop interfering in elections and urged Election Commission of Pakistan to hold free and fair election, otherwise, it would go down in history in bad words.

He claimed that the PPP would face defeat in Sindh and referred to last year’s results when the party’s candidate was defeated in its stronghold in Larkana.

Kashif Saeed, general secretary of JI Sindh; Mohammad Ashique Dhamraho, JI candidate for NA-104 (Larkana-I) against PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari; Abbas Ali Dahani, JI’s candidate for PS-10 contesting against PPP’s Faryal Talupr; Nadir Ali Khoso, JI candidate for PS-11 (Larkana-II) against Jameel Soomro, political secretary to Bilawal, and others were present at the press conference.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2024