HYDERABAD, Oct 8: Chairman of the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party (STPP) Dr Qadir Magsi has called upon the Pakistan People’s Party to repeal the Sindh People’s Local Government Act (SPLGA-2012) and introduce a new law after consulting all stakeholders, including those who are not part of the Sindh Assembly.

He was talking to reporters at a hunger strikers’ camp set up by the STPP at the Nasim Naggar roundabout on Monday.

He regretted the Khairpur incident in which seven persons lost their lives and blamed the PPP for this conflict which according to him was the offshoot of the black law in the shape of the present local government.

It was for the first time that two tribes chose a public meeting to settle their score, he said.

He said that on the one hand the president formed a committee to talk to allies and on the other the PPP announced rallies and meetings that indicated conflicts. He said public meetings could be organised with the blessings of terrorist allies after bringing peasants in trolleys to the venue, but the masses would not participate in them on their own.

“The support of the MQM is being sought for public meetings so that PPP ministers can visit Hyderabad comfortably,” he said and warned that if a conflict took place, it would lead to an environment of civil war.

“Let there be a level-playing field where the two sides can stage their rallies and people can decide who enjoys support of the masses,” he said and added that it would be considered a referendum on the issue. He condemned the use of official machinery in public meetings.

In reply to a question, he said the STPP did not believe in the 1973 Constitution because it had been done at the federal level where the STPP had no role. Similarly, the STPP had opposed the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, 2001 when it was made part of the Legal Framework Order, but it participated in the LG elections in 2005.

But the present one was a provincial legislation that’s why it was being resisted, he said. No one knew the criteria of the metropolitan corporation and decisions were being taken in an autocratic style, he said.

Answering a question, he said that when Zahid Bhurgari’s surety was forfeited, he would come to know that people were not supporting him. “Let he should visit his Saddar residence in Hyderabad without official protocol,” he said.

If 98 people had supported the bill, it did not mean that they became the master of 50 million people of Sindh, he said.