Provincial status: ‘Civil disobedience movement might arise’

NAP chief warns of Balochistan-like situation in Bahawalpur.

BAHAWALPUR:

“A situation similar to that in Balochistan might arise in Bahawalpur if the demand for Bahawalpur province is ignored,” Bahawalpur National Awami Party chief Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi said on Tuesday.

Talking to reporters at his house in Sadiq Garh Palace, Dera Nawab Sahib, Abbasi expressed his concern over the delay in constituting a 14-member commission proposed to file a report on the creation of Bahawalpur province.

Abbasi said the government was introducing the 21st constitutional amendment bill only to further narrow personal interests of the ruling party.

He said despite the passage of a unanimous resolution by the Punjab Assembly on May 9 and a presidential reference, the matter of setting up of a commission had been put away in a ‘cold storage’.

He said that the 12.5 million people of Bahawalpur have long been treated as ‘second class citizens’ by successive governments, which he said, had resulted in a sense of deprivation.

Abbasi said if the government failed to comply with the presidential reference, he would call for a civil disobedience movement in the region.

He alleged that the government was spending revenue generated from Bahawalpur for development projects in Lahore and Islamabad, while its own inhabitants were deprived of electricity for more than 18 hours every day. 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2012.