BAHAWALPUR, Sept 28 Pakistan People's Party late chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had assured Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi in London that provincial status of Bahawalpur will be restored if she came into power again.

Former MNA Farooq Azam Malik claimed this while addressing a gathering comprising people from different walks of life at his residence here on Sunday night, where Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi was the chief guest.

The gathering, organised by Nawab group, was first of the series of such events planned to launch a wider campaign for a separate Bahawalpur province. However, no important political figure from any of the three districts of the division had been invited to the meeting.

Saying the late Benazir Bhutto had pledged restoration of Bahawalpur as an independent province, Mr Malik said nobody would be allowed to highjack the cause or play politics on the issue.

He blatantly said he would not even care for his party's stance on the issue.

Malik criticised federal as well as provincial governments, alleging the both had been depriving the south Punjab people of their due share in uplift projects and government jobs. Bahawalpur had been ignored even in the appointment of new judges of the Lahore High Court, he added.

He said as an MNA, he always advocated the cause of Bahawalpur, and to prove his claim he showed video clippings of different National Assembly sessions.

In his presidential address, Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi pledged to work and even court arrest for the cause of Bahawalpur province. He said if Gilgit and Baltistan could get provincial status, why not Bahawalpur.

He said Punjab secured development funds from centre on the basis of population but did not grant these amounts according to the same principle to Bahawalpur which made 13 per cent of the province's population.

Earlier, several speakers, including JUI leader Maulana Riaz Chughtai, Javed Daulatzai and Riaz Naji, a Bahawalpur movement (1970) worker, in their speeches urged Nawab Abbasi to lead the movement.