PHOTO: FILE
The situation has become more fragile for the party after the Pir Pagara-led Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), one of its main coalition partners, expressed dismay over the Imran Khan government’s performance, saying it had failed to live up to its promises.
"The people of Sindh are disappointed with the PTI government’s performance as it has turned a blind eye to the province’s issues", Pagara said while addressing a press conference after chairing a meeting of the alliance.
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The meeting, held at the residence of Murtaza Jatoi, was attended by Ali Gohar Mahar of Ghotki, Safdar Abbasi, Ayaz Latif, Muzaffar Shah and others who discussed the current political situation and expressed concern at the federal government's ‘neglect of issues affecting Sindh’.
Pagara's s reservations about the government follow statements by PML-Q and MQM leaders against the government’s policies in the wake of Maulana Fazlur Rehman's ‘Azadi March’.
Responding to a reporter’s question and flanked by other GDA leaders, Pir Pagara said that, after the last general elections, Imran Khan and other PTI leaders had approached the alliance for its support in forming a government.
"Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen had visited us and we had extended our support to them because of our dissatisfaction with the Sindh government on issues affecting the province but, unfortunately, the PTI-led government has also delivered nothing in the last 16 months", he said.
The PTI only has a five-seat majority in the National Assembly (NA). Pagara, whose party has three NA seats, also said that unemployment was rising with each passing day while the water, energy and agriculture sectors had been neglected equally by both the provincial and federal governments.
Referring to dog bite cases and lack of anti-rabies vaccinations in Sindh, he complained that no one paid any heed to the matter and people were left at the mercy of stray dogs.
He also criticized the federal and Sindh governments on their lukewarm response to the problem of swarms of locusts which, he said, had devastated various crops.
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"The federal government was a silent spectator when these insects attacked Sindh agriculture. But it became hyperactive when the swarms reached Punjab where it has started spraying using helicopters", he complained.
He also asked the federal government to revisit its decision to build a hydropower plant on the ChashmaJhelum Link Canal which, according to him, was a flood canal. He was also of the view that the federal government should have created job opportunities in all federal departments but had miserably failed to do so.
Concluding the press conference, GDA leader Ayaz Latif Palijo demanded an increase in the support price of paddy, cotton and sugarcane to provide relief to growers in the province.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2019.
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