PPP demands removal of interim law minister

Says Umar Soomro involved in transfer of officers to get support for his father in general elections

KARACHI:

Pakistan Peoples Party leader Imtiaz Ahmad Sheikh, in a letter written to the Chief Election Commissioner, has demanded that Sindh Caretaker Law Minister Umar Soomro be removed from the interim cabinet.

"If he is not removed from the caretaker cabinet, doubts will arise about the impartiality of the provincial caretaker cabinet," he said in the letter.

The PPP leader said that the caretaker provincial law minister in Shikarpur and Jacobabad districts was giving instructions to the administration and the police during official and unofficial visits for his political ambitions against his political opponents.

He alleged that Soomro was involved in the appointment and transfer of officers, which showed that he wanted to get support for his father and his close relative in the upcoming general elections.

In his letter, Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh said that according to his information, the provincial law minister was still working against the PPP as an activist of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf.

Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh wrote that looking at the activities of Mr Soomro in Shikarpur, it was clear that his father or a close relative would participate as a candidate in the upcoming elections.

The former energy minister said that Iftikhar Soomro, father of the interim law minister, was the general secretary and president of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Sindh and had participated in the election from PS-11 Shikarpur in the last election in which he got only 2,756 votes.

Imtiaz Ahmad Sheikh wrote the ECP that caretaker provincial minister had been the provincial president of PTI lawyers' in 2017 as an active member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2023.