Durrani warns PPP against creation of Seraiki province
Former senator Muhammad Ali Durrani has warned the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) coalition government against moving the 21st Amendment in Parliament exclusively for the creation of a Seraiki province. He has said that the people of Bahawalpur division will resist any action that would be carried out on the basis of hatred and ethnicity.
Addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club, Durrani said that President Asif Ali Zardari’s announcement regarding the establishment of a Seraiki province was an open violation of the constitution as the law did not empower him to announce or form a new province in the country.
Durrani, who is the torch bearer of the Bahawalpur division restoration movement, lashed out against Zardari in a calculated manner. Sources close to the former senator and Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) said that the press conference was meant to counter Zardari’s announcement.
The president during his visit to Multan had announced that the PPP government will carve out a Seraiki province before the general elections.
Durrani said that the president is a symbol of the federation and should not propagate ethnic and linguistic hatred, adding that Zardari’s refusal to announce the restoration of Bahawalpur province had disheartened the people.
The former senator said that it was regrettable that the president was accompanied by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in his “voyage of hatred on linguistic basis”.
He said that Gilani was trying to create “Karachi-like circumstances in the peaceful region” through his statements.
“Zardari and Gilani both are hatching conspiracies against south Punjab as they have failed to control the law and order situation in Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and in northern areas.”
Durrani said that Gilani should refrain from “cultivating the seeds of hatred” in south Punjab if all parties like PML-N and the JUI-F had agreed to the restoration of the Bahawalpur province.
He said that Gilani has turned the Pakistan agenda of PPP into hatred on linguistic basis.
Durrani alleged that Gilani had used Rs120 billion on roads leading to his residences, adding that the money had been allocated for the development funds of south Punjab.
He demanded that a referendum be held in Bahawalpur to ask if they wanted their own province or not, adding that he had submitted a resolution for referendum when he was a senator but it had not been entertained.
Durrani thanked Nawaz Sharif for his promise to restore the status of Bahawalpur.
Responding to a question on the creation of a Seraiki province, Durrani said, “if PPP commits such a blunder then it would be its last error.”