DADU, Oct 12: People's Party Parliamentarians provincial president Qaim Ali Shah has alleged that the government has created an artificial shortage of water in Sindh to force its people to accept the Kalabagh dam project.
He was speaking at the PPP workers' convention at the party's district office here on Monday. He said that Sindh was an agricultural province but due to flawed policies, the Sindh government had been compelled to procure one million tonnes of wheat from Punjab and abroad.
He said that in the name of providing jobs to youths, the Sindh government had collected Rs2.1 million by selling job application forms through banks. He said that thousands of jobless youths had purchased the forms, each costing Rs100, and about 7,000 had passed written test for jobs in the education department but job offer letters had not been issued to them.
Mr Shah claimed that during the Jam Sadiq's rule in Sindh, 7,000 PPP workers had been arrested in Dadu district to force them to change their loyalties but none of them had done so. He alleged that police were again arresting PPP workers at the instance of the government to force them to desert the party.
He declared that the party would not accept those who had changed their loyalties. He alleged that the government officials had tried to divide the PPP and engineered infighting among the ranks of PPP workers but they could not succeed.
He said that the law and order situation was deteriorating in the country and poverty was increasing due to wrong policies of the government. He said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was a banker and he had no knowledge about people of remote areas. He said that the Thari people had elected Mr Aziz but he had forsaken the Tharparkar seat.
He claimed that PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto would return soon and said that PPP activists should prepare for the coming situation. He predicted that 2,005 would be the election year and hoped that the PPP would succeed in it throughout the country.
He said that the government had implicated PPP leaders in false cases and demanded withdrawal of cases against Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari, Yousuf Raza Gilani and others.
MNA Rafiq Ahmed Jamali, MPAs Asif Ali Shah and Marvi Mazhar, Zafar Ali Leghari, Qazi Shafiq Ahmed Mahesar, Sattar Bachani and Dost Ali Jaiser also spoke at the convention.
JACOBABAD: People's Party Parliamentarians Sindh president Qaim Ali Shah has said that the Constitution of Pakistan has remained suspended since its inception, and illegal amendments and referendum have played further havoc with it.
Talking to members of the Jacobabad Bar Association here on Tuesday, he claimed that Gen Pervez Musharraf had distorted the Constitution further. Asserting that the General had come into power through the backdoor, he questioned the validity of the parliament if it recognized Gen Musharraf as President and the uniform issue on part of the graduate assembly.
In this context, he referred to Afghanistan, where the president was not retaining the two offices though the situation there was critical. He said the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy was struggling for rule of law and restoration of Constitution in the country, and that the alliance stood for the revival of the constitution of 1973 and was against the construction of Kalabagh dam.
Claiming that he stood for the 1991 water accord, he warned that if construction of the dam was allowed, Sindh would be rendered barren as water would not reach even up to Guddu. Farooq Leghari had opposed the construction of the dam, but now, he had changed his stand and was with the General, he asserted.