The Pakistan Peoples Party has announced a 'Karachi Solidarity Rally' tomorrow (Sunday) aimed against those 'attempting to divide Sindh along linguistic and ethnic lines.'
The rally, organised by PPP's Karachi chapter, is to commence at 2pm at Ayesha Manzil, announced party division president and Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani addressing a press conference at his office on Friday. It will begin with speeches from the party's leaders in Karachi.
Ghani was flanked by PPP Sindh general-secretary Waqar Mehdi and Karachi general-secretary Javed Nagori.
The PPP leaders condemned Prime Minister Imran Khan's recent statements, which they claimed were divisive as he implied that the 'people of Sindh are ruling Karachi.'
The PPP, which leads the provincial government in Sindh, categorised these statements as 'Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)-styled linguistic politics' and maintained that the rally is aimed at those promoting 'hate-based politics' in Sindh.
The party leaders opined that the MQM was a 'fascist and terrorist' party, which is why the people of Karachi and the province had rejected itpolitically. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is following in the same vein to promote linguistic politics in Sindh and is conspiring to spread hatred among people of different nationalities and languages that reside in Karachi, they alleged.
"We have said from day one that this is an incompetent prime minister who does not even know parliamentary etiquette," said Ghani.
The PPP leaders claim that Sunday's rally will be one of the party's largest ones and will prove that the people of Karachi sided with the PPP, and are with the PPP even today.
In response to a question, Ghani said that his party considered people of all languages and nationalities living in Sindh as Sindhi. "No matter which part of the country they belong to, if they are settled in the province, they are Sindhi," he said.
Language politics are employed by dictators, and this government reflects the same dictatorial thinking, remarked Ghani.
Answering another question, the provincial minister opined that MQM-style riots would be 100 times more dangerous than the coronavirus.
Conceding that it would be difficult to implement standard operating procedures (SOPs) at the rally, Ghani said that they would try their best to do so.
When asked about the court's verdict on the Ali Enterprises factory fire in Baldia Town, Ghani said that the provincial government may go to court against the verdict. "The party believes that many of those allegedly responsible for the tragedy have not been convicted as yet and legal experts are being consulted in this regard," he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 3rd, 2020.
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