SUKKUR, Nov 5: A leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional said on Monday that there was no difference between Pir Pagara and his younger brother Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashdi aka Yunus Sain.

Speaking at a press conference, PML-F leader Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh said that the decision to nominate Nusrat Sehar Abbasi as the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly was taken in a meeting chaired by party’s Sindh president Sadaruddin Rashidi, but it was later endorsed by Pir Pagara.

Denying any differences between the two brothers, he termed all such news false and part of disinformation.

However, he avoided a direct comment on a statement made by former chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Raheem in which he criticised the nomination of Ms Abbasi as opposition leader.

He said that the PML-F enjoyed majority among all opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly, so nobody else had a right to ‘poke his nose in our affairs’.

Mr Shaikh asked the Pakistan People’s Party to withdraw the controversial Sindh People’s Local Government Act, 2012 if it wanted to make a workable local body system through negotiation with the opposition. He vowed that his party, which he said became an alternative force in Sindh, with the help of alliance partners, would form its own government after the next general elections.

He said that the PML-F was ready to contest elections on a 24-hour notice.

He also expressed the possibility of merger of different factions of the Pakistan Muslim League and said that Pir Pagara was all set to visit Sindh and Punjab in the coming weeks and progress in this regard would be made during his meetings with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and others.

This, he viewed, would be the implementation of the dream of late Pir Pagara.

To a question, he said his party fully supported the Supreme Court’s decision barring holders of dual nationality from contesting elections.

He said that the PML-F also in favour of a SC direction that the president could not hold political activities in the presidency. He said that his party was also against the Kalabagh dam project, as three provinces gave their verdict against it.

He criticised the PPP for betraying the people of Sindh in the flood and rains of 2010, 2011 and 2012.

On the occasion, a local leader of the PPP, Sukkur chapter, Safia Baloch announced joining the PML-F.