Local government system: SUP concerned about PPP negotiations

SUP leader says ‘Save Sindh Committee’ meeting would be held to devise a strategy against proposed LG legislation.

KARACHI: The Sindh United Party (SUP) is concerned about negotiations between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) on the upcoming local government system. The SUP president, Jalal Mehmood, said this while speaking at a press conference at Hyder Manzil on Monday. “We are in favour of introducing a uniform LG system in Sindh. But they want to repeat the mistake of placing the old local government system in rural areas and a new system in Karachi and Hyderabad. This kind of legislation will not be tolerated and we will resist it,” he said. He added that both coalition partners were contemplating to divide Sindh by introducing two separate local government systems for urban and rural Sindh. Shah said that they had made an election alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and would soon contact other nationalist parties in other provinces to form a national level alliance. The SUP leader said that a ‘Save Sindh Committee’ (an alliance of Sindhi nationalist parties) meeting would be held to devise a strategy against the proposed local government legislation and other issues being faced by the people living in Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2012.