Political alliances: Ghotki’s Mahar group expected to join PPP today

PPP tries to calm its worried activists in Ghotki.

SUKKUR: The Mahar brothers of Ghotki are expected to formally join the Pakistan Peoples Party during a press conference with PPP MNA Faryal Talpur at the Gohar Palace in Khangarh today. Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and federal religious affairs minister Khursheed Ahmed Shah are also expected to be present on the occasion today.

Members of the Mahar group, including Ali Nawaz Khan alias Raja Mahar, Sardar Mohammad Bux Mahar, Ali Mohammad Mahar, Sardar Ali Gohar Mahar and Nasir Shah, had attended a meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari at the Bilawal House late on Sunday. According to the agreement reached on the occasion, the Mahars would be allotted one National Assembly seat and two Sindh Assembly seats. The group is expected to field its candidates in areas where they have considerable political influence, including Ghotki and Upper Sindh.

The Mahar group was originally expected to announce their joining the PPP at a public gathering, in the presence of the president. However, since the Bilawal House meeting, the PPP leadership has mostly been addressing the concerns of its party workers in Ghotki, who appear to have not taken kindly to the Maher group’s inclusion into the party. The influential group was reportedly in dialogue with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional before it decided to join the PPP.

The chief minister and Talpur reportedly directed the influential Dharejo brothers to stop campaigning against the Mahar group. President Zardari was reportedly informed that Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo and MPA Jam Ikramullah Dharejo were responsible for instigating party activists to protest against the Maher brothers.

According to sources, part of the reason that the president decided to not attend the public gathering in honour of the Maher brothers was to not put the Dharejo brothers and the Lund clan into an embarrassing situation. During the last general elections, Raja Khan Mahar had lost to Ikramullah Dharejo in Ghotki’s PS-6 seat.

Sources added that federal minister Ghous Bux Khan Mahar and his son Sheheryar Mahar, who are both currently affiliated with the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, are now also expected to follow the lead of their clan and join the PPP.