HYDERABAD, March 2: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Naveed Qamaruzzaman Shah has termed the construction of greater Thal canal a total negation of the seven-point agenda propounded by President Gen Pervez Musharraf who had pledged to eliminate disharmony between the provinces.

Talking to newsmen at his residence here on Saturday, he said it was a major issue and a very sensitive one which should not be touched without developing a consensus.

He said this issue must be postponed and left to the democratic government.

Mr Shah said the political culture of victimization, vengeance and tit-for-tat would have to be changed and instead a culture of tolerance would have to be introduced in the body politic.

The former federal minister said Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to return to Pakistan to play their due role in politics.

When asked whether PPP would boycott elections if Bhutto was not allowed to take part in the election process, Mr Shah said only the party high command and the alliances could evolve any strategy in this regard.

He, however, said personally he was not in favour of boycott.

He said it was high time we learnt a lesson from our past mistakes adding both the major political parities of the country, PPP and PML, had reached a consensus on this point.

He regretted random arrests had become a norm of life in Pakistan though in the civilised societies, one could not be arrested without solid evidence.

Referring to his recent 28-month imprisonment in an accountability reference which could not be proved against him, Mr Shah said that initially he was remanded to custody for 90 days though he was never interrogated during this period.

He added the irony was that those who had initiated accountability proceedings against him were later incarcerated.

He said he was not against accountability but it should be impartial and across the board and should remain a continuous process.

Answering a question about the devolution of power plan, the PPP leader said that the authors of this new frame-work were not clear about the devolution plan which at least for the time being had failed to take off.

About communal riots in India, he said that it was the natural outfall of choosing communalism instead of secularism.

He refuted the insinuations that PPP as a party was involved in any attack on the PML (QA) leaders in Larkana. He said it was the spontaneous reaction of the people because the son of former dictator Zia-ul-Haq, Ejazul Haq was considered a persona non grata in Sindh.