Pagara warns Zardari of similar fate as that of Nawaz

PTI, GDA claim to have held largest public meeting in Umerkot

HYDERABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) staged a combined power show in a heavily attended public meeting in Umerkot district on Tuesday, raking Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) leader Asif Zardari over the coals. Addressing the boisterous crowd, GDA's leader Pir Pagara Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi and PTI's vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi vowed to hold PPP's leadership accountable for their alleged corruption after their electoral victory.

"The people should take revenge from the PPP through the vote," said Pagara. "The loss incurred by Sindh and the country during the last 10 years ought to be compensated."

Referring to the conviction of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif, he said Zardari should imagine what would happen to him if a leader like Sharif had been jailed. Pagara claimed that Zardari had pledged the foreign powers that if they helped him make the federal government again, he would trade that power for the nuclear weapons technology of Pakistan. "It's a big treason to the country. What else he wouldn't do to get the power."

He claimed that 2013 election results were changed overnight. The election results were forged in 13 to 15 constituencies and many of the winning candidates of the GDA's precursor, 10-party alliance, were defeated, he added. But, Pagara was confident that in the upcoming elections the same rigging will not be repeated.



"Zardari is taking revenge from PPP for expelling his father (late Hakim Ali Zardari). That's why he has turned PPP into Zardari league."

He claimed that former chairman of PPP Parliamentarians and federal minister late Makhdoom Amin Fahim wanted to part ways with PPP and spent the last days of his life in sorrow. He further disclosed that Fahim informed him that he was not aware of any will of Benazir Bhutto hrough which Zardari was given the party's headship. "Benazir has said in her life that there would be no connection of Zardari with politics."

Pagara disapproved of the imprisonment of Maryam Nawaz, but he said that they are unable to change the situation as she has been jailed under the court's order. The GDA's leader held the PPP's government responsible for a shortage of water in Sindh and its adverse effect on the agro-economy and livelihoods connected with it.

"The PPP's dream of forming the government will never be realised," said Qureshi. "The change has become the need of the time."



PTI's leader, who is a candidate for two seats of National Assembly in Umerkot and Tharparkar districts, claimed that GDA gathering was the largest public meeting which Umerkot has witnessed so far. Qureshi claimed that Zardari has tasked the PPP's provincial leadership to ensure his defeat in the two districts.

"I first came to Umerkot in 2013 elections to try to awaken the people. Today I see that awakening has spread in this region." He said PPP has almost been wiped out from Punjab because the people have dismissed that party. "There is no symbol of the arrow in 104 out of 141 NA's constituencies in Punjab. Like Punjab, the people of Sindh should now give the verdict of ousting the PPP."

Former chief minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim, PML-Functional's Sindh president and former federal minister Syed Sadruddin Shah Rashdi among other leaders also spoke.