KARACHI, Dec 18: A provincial leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said on Tuesday that his party was taking steps to form a grand alliance with all ‘likeminded’ parties to field joint candidates in the upcoming election against the Pakistan People’s Party and its coalition partners in Sindh.

Speaking at a press conference, PML-N leader Ismail Rahu said that the present democratic government was completing its five-year term and all credit went to Nawaz Sharif, the judiciary and the media.

He cautioned the democratic forces against those elements which were trying to deprive the judiciary and the media of what he described as their hard-earned independence.

He criticised certain ministers in the Sindh cabinet for suffering from a “Nawaz Sharif phobia” and said that they did not see a deteriorating law and order in Karachi where targeted killings, frequent traffic jams and lawlessness had become the order of the day.

Referring to the Kalabagh dam, he said that the PPP had itself raised the issue to divert the attention of the masses from other pressing issues, including the Sindh People’s Local Government Act 2012 which had already been rejected by the people.

He said that a massive rally of opposition and nationalist parties in Hyderabad was proof that the PPP could no more hoodwink the people by raising dead issues through its own party leaders in Punjab.

He said Nawaz Sharif had repeatedly reiterated his party’s stand vis-à-vis the Kalabagh dam that it could not be built without the consensus of all federating units.