PPP gears up for long march to ‘oust PTI’

The Sindh information minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has said the protest at the culmination of the long march should continue until the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government is ousted from power. "Although our leadership will take a decision in this regard, my personal opinion is that the march should continue until the PTI is ousted," he stated while talking to the media at Sindh Livestock Expo 2021 in Hyderabad on Sunday.

He argued that the impression is wrong that Pakistan Peoples Party is reluctant for en masse resignations by the opposition parties because it does not want to lose its government in Sindh. "We aren't resigning for the sake of the government in Sindh, this is not true. This isn't an obstacle."

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Shah maintained that handing in resignations is one of the strategies that the Pakistan Democratic Movement's leadership has been discussing.

He said the strategy of the PPP under which the opposition parties participated in the countrywide by-elections proved successful as PTI was electorally defeated in all the provinces. "Whole [of] Pakistan gave a verdict against the inept PTI and in Sindh PPP emerged as a big winner. The results from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are also before the people."

Mobilising workers

At a separate press conference in Nawabshah PPP Sindh's president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro told that he has been chairing meetings in many parts of Sindh to mobilise the party's workers for the March 26 long march. "The people understand how necessary this march has become to oust this government, which has only given inflation and redundancy to the people."

Khuhro claimed that they are receiving threats to stop them from participation in the long march. He appealed to the people of Sindh to take part in the protest march in large numbers.

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"We allowed Quaid-e-Azam's tuberculosis to aggravate to the point where it became incurable. Jinnah said the institutions should follow the civilian leadership and the result he got was a broken ambulance," said Khuhro. "Quaid-e-Millat [Liaquat Ali Khan] was shot dead, Quaid-e-Awam [Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto] was hanged, our leader [Benazir Bhutto] was assassinated and some other leaders were exiled."

He contended that the said war between the general public and the institutions continues. Khuhro recalled that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was the only political party which had supported a referendum held to validate the rule of military dictator General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2021.