Malik Asad Sikandar buries hatchet with PPP leadership over housing scheme in Jamshoro

Faryal Talpur visits Sikandar's residence in Thano Ahmed Khan, signifying rapprochement

HYDERABAD: An internecine wrangle between Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) leadership and Jamshoro-based mogul MNA Malik Asad Sikandar seems to have officially and publicly ended after around seven weeks of friction.

On Friday, PPP Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari's sister, MNA Faryal Talpur, visited Sikandar's residence in Thano Ahmed Khan, signifying rapprochement with the MNA.

Talking to the media, provincial minister Nisar Khuhro, who accompanied Talpur, denied that the two sides remained at loggerheads over the contention of land acquisition for a large real estate project. "There wasn't any resentment," he claimed. "I don't think anything like that exists."



Since early July, Sikandar and his supporters complained of being subjected to the government's onslaught. MPA Faqeerdad Khoso, who sided with the MNA, led a protest demonstration for several days to oppose the Sindh Building Control Authority's action on the local housing projects owned by Sikandar's supporters.

Officers posted in Jamshoro, on his recommendations, were also transferred while rumours circulated that four administrative dehs of Jamshoro are being added in Karachi.

Khuhro said changes in the boundaries of districts are often made, giving an example of how six districts were made from formerly two districts in Karachi. But, he did not give a categorical reply about the fate of the four dehs.



Sikandar was not available to give his stance over the disagreement.

NAB

The provincial minister reiterated the PPP government's stance of legislating the law to clip wings of the National Accountability Bureau in Sindh. "We talk a lot about provincial autonomy, but when practical steps are taken this doesn't go well with many people," he said.

He asserted that the Constitution has vested the authority in the Sindh Assembly to legislate a law to establish an anti-corruption organisation in the province, adding that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has already set up the accountability commission.