SHIKARPUR, Oct 29: The next local government election in Sindh will be held after the general election.

This was stated by provincial Minister for Local Government Agha Siraj Durrani while speaking to the media at Durrani House in Garhi Yasin on Sunday.

He said that a date for the local government election would be announced after getting the estranged allies in the Sindh government agreed on a local government system for Sindh through talks with them.

He said talks on the matter would also be held with nationalist parties and groups opposing the Sindh People’s Local Government Act, 2012 in the larger interest of Sindh people.

He said that the government intended to introduce the new local government system in order to improve the socio-economic condition of the people of Sindh, who had been deprived of their basic rights in the past owing to a bad local government system that was meant only to rule over them instead of resolving their longstanding problems.

The minister said that the new system was evolved after four years of talks with coalition partners keeping in mind the people’s welfare and the province’s uplift. He insisted that nationalists were misleading people to create misgivings about the government’s intentions by staging rallies and demonstrations against the new law. He accused them of not being sincere to Sindh’s people, and claimed that they were hindering development in Sindh.

Mr Durrani said that the PPP leadership was trying its best to bring all opponents of the law including Pakistan Muslim League-Functional chief Pir Pagara to the negotiating table before the governor’s assent to the SPLGA. However, he added, they were not ready to hold dialogue on the issue.

He said the government was ready to make amendments to the act if they were in the larger interest of the province and its people. He said that expressing reservations and registering protest were part of democracy but issues could be resolved only through talks and not through street protests.