Despite being elected from Mianwali and South Punjab, Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar rule the country and the province, respectively, and yet taunt the Pakistan Peoples Party for ruling Karachi after being elected from interior Sindh, said PPP leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Sunday.
He was addressing the Karachi Solidarity Rally organised by the PPP’s Karachi chapter.
“The citizens of Karachi have rejected the division of Sindh,” said Khuhro, averring that the PPP would fight for Karachi’s rights and would not let anyone steal the rights of the city and its citizens.
“The PPP does not cheat in elections. Its leaders are elected on the basis of the power of the people,” claimed Khuhro, adding that the rally was just the beginning. “The public will be out on the streets against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf if the PPP gives the call for protest across Sindh.”
He asked the participants for their pledge to come out on the streets when PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called for protest. “This [crowd] is just the support for the PPP. Pakistan’s rulers will be worried when 11 parties unite and show their power.”
Sunday’s rally was the public’s referendum against ‘hate politics’ based on linguistic discrimination, claimed PPP leaders as their protest march concluded.
PPP leaders including Khuhro, Saeed Ghani and Waqar Mehdi had led the protesters from Ayesha Manzil to Sharae Pakistan, then through Karimabad, the Liaquatabad Flyover, Teen Hatti, Jahangir Road, Gurumandir and the Peoples Secretariat before culminating in Saddar.
Addressing supporters and party workers, they asserted that those who dream of taking over Karachi should stop doing so.
“Muhammad Ali Jinnah never spoke for division but those who speak in its support have ruined three generations of Urdu-speaking citizens,” claimed Khuhro, taking jibes at the party’s political opponents.
According to Khuhro, the PPP will keep fighting for the country’s prosperity and welfare, and against public suffering caused by inflation. “The PPP is proud of those who live in katchi abadis and are ever ready to sacrifice their lives to uphold the law and democracy.”
PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was executed but bullets, torture or death sentences could not keep the PPP from struggling for the rights of the people, he maintained. “We will fight for their rights under the leadership of Bilawal while keeping aside linguistic, discriminative, sectarian and political differences.”
PPP Karachi president and provincial education minister Ghani addressed the rally as well.
“The citizens of Karachi have made clear their response to the premier and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and all those promoting politics of hatred,” he said. “They want to put a stop to hatred based on linguistic differences,” he went on, adding that the demonstrators had proven that nobody would be allowed to divide Sindh or disrupt peace in Karachi.
‘One and same’
Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman criticised the PPP for its governance failures in Karachi.
In the absence of an empowered city government, he dubbed PPP’s rally a ‘fraud’ with Karachi’s citizens.
“By holding this rally, the PPP thinks the people of Karachi are with it,” said Rehman. “But the city’s problems right now include the lack of local governance, unemployment, and transport, education and health facilities.”
If the PPP was serious about Karachi, it would have played its part for the city’s construction and development over the past 30 years, he remarked. Lumping the PPP and MQM together, he claimed that both their slogans against each other were only to deceive the people.
He opined that if the PPP really cared for Karachi’s citizens, it would have spoken regarding fake domiciles and quota systems. “People from all over the country, of all languages and religions, live in this city. My party wants the city to be given its rights.”
He called for an empowered city government to be established, and for the resources generated in the city to be utilised for the development of the city.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2020.
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