SHERPAO (Charsadda), Feb 8: Former governor of Punjab Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar has said that Pakistan People’s Party will emerge as the biggest political force because its all splinter groups are going to merge into one single party soon.

Speaking at a public meeting, organized by the Sherpao group, to observe the 27th death anniversary of Hayat Mohammad Khan Sherpao, who was killed in a bomb blast in 1974 in the Peshawar University, he claimed that the PPP of late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto would be brought back into the masses.

Mr Khar said the PPP would go through its manifesto, stressing in the might of the people, democracy as the medium of politics and economy based on social justice.

Dilating upon the escalating tension on borders, he predicted that neither India nor Pakistan could win the war and both would be the losers.

“India will undergo a division into many states, if it wants to divide Pakistan,” he added.

He urged the Punjabi politicians to refrain from dubbing India, the very next door neighbour, as the enemy.

The enmity with India, stretching over 50 years, had brought poverty and backwardness to the people of both the countries, he added.

Mr Khar also criticized the role of the US in Afghanistan and held American administration responsible for nurturing terrorists in the name of Jihad in the fateful country. “The US had sown the seeds of terrorism to achieve its own objectives in  Afghanistan,” Mr Khar said.

He paid rich tribute to his late comrade, Hayat Khan Sherpao, who inculcate a sense of resistance in the minds of the Frontier peasants and urged them to struggle against exploitation.

Sindh Awami Tehreek chief Rasool Bakhsh Palejo underlined the need for bringing a political balance among the four federating units of the federation.

The one federating unit (Punjab), was enjoying a hegemonistic status over the remaining three units, he added.

He said at present Sindh was crying for water. “Our cities are short of water. The residents of historic Sukkur city are facing an acute shortage of water. Sindhis have always extended their support to Pakhtoon brothers and it is time Pakhtoon should side with Sindhis on the water issue at the federal level,” he added.

Mr Palejo asked the decision makers to give equal share to Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan in the military top brass, economic division, finance department and other autonomous institutions.

Pakistan Sraiki Party chief Taj Mohammad Khan Langah opposed the division of country into 26 provinces and asked the rulers to refrain from turning the country into a home of Nazims and army.

He demanded that Punjab should be divided into three provinces to end the present disequilibrium which was destroying the federation.

Dr Ghulam Hussain, general secretary of the PPP (SB), said that the 1973 Constitution be restored into its original form and all the amendments made by successive governments into it should be removed.

He said that without granting the due rights of smaller provinces the federation could not exist for a long time. It was need of the hour to restore confidence of the smaller provinces, he added.

National Awami Party Pakistan, chief Ajmal Khan Khattak urged the people to unite themselves if they wanted to achieve their rights. He said his party was struggling to turn the country into a welfare state.

Akram Shah of Pakhtoon Milli Awami Party, Rehmat Khan Wardag of Tehreek-i-Istaqlal, Zubair Ahmed Zaheer of Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith Kabir Wasti of the PML, Afrasiab Khattak of the HRCP and Sikandar Khan Sherpao also spoke.

The  meeting also adopted a number of resolutions calling for the release of Aftab Sherpao, provincial autonomy and checking price-hike in the country.