HYDERABAD, Sept 24: Sindh United Party (SUP) senior vice-president Shah Mohammad Shah has said that the second phase of the ongoing campaign against the recently promulgated Sindh People’s Local Government Ordinance, 2012 will begin on Wednesday, when rallies and sit-ins will be held in all divisional and district headquarters of the province.

Speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Monday along with Sindh Bachayo Committee (SBC) members including Ghulam Hyder Shahani, Akash Mallah, Afzal Gujjar and Khalid Dhamra, he said highways especially those leading to Karachi would be blocked and if the ordinance was presented in the assembly, a siege to the assembly building would be laid.

The SBC, a conglomerate of various nationalist parties, is headed by SUP president Jalal Mehmood Shah.

He said that the Wednesday protest would be reflective of people’s aspirations as far as the ordinance was concerned.“The SBC would not allow a division of Sindh through the ordinance, which provides for two different systems for one province,” he said, He observed that Sindhi- and Urdu-speaking people living in the province had common interests and they had to stay here permanently.

“Promulgation of the SPLGO, 2012 is an insult to the Sindh Assembly, which has voted for the commissioner system,” he said.

Mr Shah agreed that local government system was the backbone of democracy but argued that through the ordinance even islands had been given under the control of mayors. He proposed that Karachi should be divided into five independent zonal municipal committees with financial powers. “Under the present system, towns remain intact and Karachi is one municipal district whereas the position of Hyderabad is not touched. Even the position of Tandojam is not clear so far as Hyderabad’s proposed municipal corporation is concerned,” he said.

He appreciated the tendering of resignation by some provincial ministers in protest against the SPLGO. “The SBC realises Sindh is badly affected by rains and floods these days but the committee also cannot afford to let the LG law issue go in the cold storage,” he said.

He urged two major ruling coalition partners — the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — to withdraw the ordinance.

Meanwhile, Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party (STPP) chairman Dr Qadir Magsi has declared that no one has the right to divide Sindh even if he attains a 100 per cent mandate from the province.

He was speaking after a luncheon hosted in honour of Iqbal Tareen, the former president of the Sindhi Association of North America (SANA) here on Monday.

The STPP leader described democracy in Pakistan as ‘a joke’ and argued that black laws were being enacted here on a daily basis and the country’s destiny was decided by the ruling elite and feudal lords.

He said his party disapproved of such a system and the kind of an alliance that were aimed at reaching the power corridors.

Dr Magsi observed that the government was neglecting the masses and compromising on the rights of Sindhi people. “No fair and transparent elections can be held until the biometric system of voting is introduced,” he said, adding that his party and supporters wanted to see a change in the country.

Some politicians appeared to be under the illusion that nationalists could not win a seat in elections, he said, adding that they would find out about it on polling day. “We will contest general elections to prove that. Only feudal lords and capitalists are not with us; farmers and labourers support us in our struggle,” he said.

He sought to dispel the impression that the STPP believed in racism and argued that people belonging to Punjab and all other provinces and ethnic communities were part of it. He said that those who were bent upon dividing Sindh could not be sincere towards Sindhis.

“We are called nationalist because we love people and this country, we want natural resources of the country to be utilised for the wellbeing of the masses, who must be made financially strong,” he said, adding that the projects like Zulfikarabad and Greater Thal Canal which were detrimental to the interests of Sindh and the issues like Panu Aqil garrison were created to divert the attention of people from real issues.

Mr Tareen told the audience that the late G.M. Syed taught people the lesson of saving Sindhi first and Sindh next. “Sindh ended its history of thousands of years in 1947 when it accepted refugees from India,” he said.

Ghulam Hyder Shahani of the STPP, Punhal Sario of Sindh Porhiyat Council, Zulfikar Halepoto and Dr Azhar Ali Shah also spoke.