MQM-P’s demand for new province gains momentum

As Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) sticks to its demand of creating a new province in Sindh, the party's leadership says the centre and the national assembly should ideally have the right to decide creation of new provinces.

Addressing an event at Hyderabad Institute of Technology and Management Sciences on Saturday, the Federal Minister and convener of MQM-P Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said they will pursue a constitutional amendment in this regard.

"We are against rolling back the 18th amendment. We rather want to see complete implementation over it," Siddiqui, who also spoke to the media, said. He reiterated that article 140-A of the amendment has enshrined a local government system which operated with completely devolved authority.

He emphasised that the new provinces should be created keeping in view the growing population of the country. He argued that it went against the grain of the law to empower the provincial assemblies to decide about creating or not creating new provinces within their territorial jurisdiction.

"We are trying to introduce an amendment in the constitution towards this end." He contended that Hyderabad will continue to be the country's third largest city if an honest population census is conducted. He deplored that such large city with rapidly growing population continues to be deprived of the public sector universities, a demand which MQM-P besides other political parties have been making for decades.

He said a former vice chancellor of NED had planned to open the varsity's campus in Hyderabad but the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah thwarted his attempt and that campus was instead opened in Tharparkar.