HYDERABAD, Aug 17: Sindh United Party chief Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah has said that the solution to the problems confronting Sindh lies in provincial autonomy because under it, the resources of the province will be in the control of a provincial government.

He said that the doors of his party were open to all the permanent residents of Sindh, regardless of the language they spoke, whose political, economic and cultural interests were linked with Sindh.

Mr Shah was speaking at a news conference here on Friday to welcome some People’s Party Parliamentarians activists in the fold of his party. He said that the SUP was the only party in Sindh which believed in the philosophy of G. M. Syed and was struggling for the rights of the people of Sindh.

He said that during the last 60 years, major political parties had reached the corridors of power by using Sindh card but they had never highlighted problems of the people of the province in the assemblies.

The reason was that they were not sincere with Sindh or its people, he added.

Without naming the PPP, he said that the parties wanted to come into power through “deal” or “dheel” and added that a real democratic party depended only on peoples’ power and not on some deal.

Answering a question, the SUP chief said that his party would participate in the coming general elections because it believed that parliamentary way was the only correct path to protect the rights of the people.

On the occasion, some PPP activists — including Agha Mehar Ali Shah, Mohammad Ashraf Abro, Syed Haider Shah, Shafi Mohammad Baloch and Imran Shah — announced that they had joined the SUP.

Agha Mehar said that he felt ashamed that the PPP was trying to enter into a deal with President Gen Pervez Musharraf and added that it had greatly disappointed PPP activists.