Pre-election ploys: Demands for new province just a stunt, says Palejo

Awami Tehreek chief criticises the govt for not being responsive.

SUKKUR: The calls for a separate Mohajir province out of Sindh are an “election stunt” engineered by the government, so that it could scare Sindhi people into voting for it again.

This was the opinion of Awami Tehreek chief Rasool Bux Palejo. He was speaking to lawyers at the district bar, Sukkur, on Thursday.

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a lawyer and he would always ask questions before he made any decision, but the country is currently run by those who know nothing about their job, said Palejo adding that the current rulers are puppets appointed by the United States, and that only lawyers in Pakistan could pull the country out from its present miserable condition.

“What kind of democracy did Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma serve when two-year-old girls are raped and people are killed over minor disputes,” asked Palejo rhetorically, while criticising the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government for not being responsive to the plight of its people. “We need a lawyer like [Jinnah] to serve the masses.”

Palejo said that nearly ten thousand court cases against the government were waived. He urged the people to join hands with lawyers in order to get rid of American influence in the country.

Palejo parried away questions about the Supreme Court’s verdict against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. He compared the issue of reopening the Nato supply route to a scuffle between a husband and a wife.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2012.