HYDERABAD: Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP) Chairman Dr Qadir Magsi has warned the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership that its “hypocrisy” on the six canals issue may cost it dearly and people of Sindh would burry its politics.

He was speaking at a news conference at local press club on Saturday.

He said STP was going to hold a rally from Ghaghar Phatak to Governor House in Karachi on Sunday on the controversial canals issue to mobilise the masses as part of its struggle.

He rapped the PPP for its poor governance in Sindh, and accused it of deceiving people by quoting fake figures regarding its tree plantation drive.

He said PPP projected its performance for Islamabad- and Lahore-based journalists in the shape of NICVD but those media personnel were unaware about the state of affairs in Hyderabad’s Civil Hospital or every basic health unit in the province.

“It’s a long tale of destruction of Sindh,” he remarked.

Dr Magsi deplored that the PPP government failed to get Sindh its due share in the Indus water since 2008 as per the 1991 Water Accord.

He said the deltaic region downstream Kotri Barrage was badly affected and this was a perennial problem. He said that the IUCN believed 15MAF flows were needed downstream Kotri while technocrats insisted on 9MAF flows.

He said that ever since eastern rivers were given to India, millions of acres in Sindh’s coastal area had been devoured by sea. Lands were falling prey to sea intrusion in Kharo Chhaan [Thatta] on a daily basis, he added.

The STP chief repeated the allegation that President Asif Ali Zardari had given his nod to certain amendments to the Irsa Act at a recent meeting in President’s House although former president Dr Arif Alvi had earlier rejected the same.

He claimed that Asif Zardari even offered that if federal government did not have funds, then provinces could execute such projects with their own funding.

‘A technocrat game’

Dr Magsi was of the view that technocrats would always come up with new concepts, pointing out that they prevailed upon [former PM] Benazir Bhutto, who had to make a statement that if people had objection to the Kalabagh dam, then it could be renamed as the ‘Indus dam’. Similarly, he recalled, that [former PM] Nawaz Sharif was made to say that after carrying out nuclear test, he would go for another explosion by building Kalabagh dam.

‘Canals project was Musharraf’s idea’

The STP chief said that the controversial six-canals project was in fact part of Musharraf’s ‘Water Vision 2025’ centered on argument that Indus flows were lost in sea.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2024