THATTA, April 6: Speakers at the ‘Sindh Agenda Conference 2013’ held here on Saturday expressed the concerted view that the PPP leadership after coming to power in the last elections virtually undermined the integrity of Sindh by evolving the so-called ‘reconciliation policy’.

Intellectuals, writers, poets, lawyers, political leaders, members of the civil society and elite of the area spoke at the conference, organised under the auspices of the Sindh Writers and Thinkers Forum at Makli Gymkhana.

The speakers said that it was time that Sindh people got out of the ‘political romanticism’ and sorted out strategies to save the province by electing sincere and genuine representatives in upcoming elections.

Describing the Sindh caretaker government as ‘a shadow government’, Amanullah Shaikh alleged that PPP betrayed the general public, particularly the poor and downtrodden, and was now trying to bring in a close relative of President Asif Ali Zardari to “usurp the province’s natural resources, including islands”.

Dastagir Bhatti was of the view that fielding a fisherman community leader against a PPP candidate in the coastal constituency of PS-88 Ghorabari seemed to be a symbolic fight. However, he said intellectuals and the active segment of society would throw their weight behind the fisherman community leader. He said if the PPP candidate in this constituency was defeat, it would be a major blow to the PPP.

Writer Shoukat Shoro, a former director of Sindhology, claimed that when PPP captured power about five years back the poverty ratio in Sindh was 20 per cent and on completion of its term the ratio had shot up to 50 per cent.

Muzaffar Chandio and Mushtaque Rajper were of view PPP instead of following legacy of its founder chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto strengthened feudalistic and ethnic forces.

Mariam Majeedi, Khuda Dino Shah and Syed Mohammad Ali Shah of PFF also spoke.