PPP asks Mahars of Ghotki to woo more voters in upper Sindh

Ruling party wants recent recruits to negotiate with other influential groups.

KARACHI:

The Mahars of Ghotki have been given the task to negotiate with other influential groups in Sukkur to either join the Pakistan Peoples Party or enter an electoral alliance.

The decision was taken at a meeting held at Chief Minister House on Friday, where Federal Religious Affairs Minister Khursheed Ahmed Shah along with former Ghotki district nazim, Sardar Ali Gohar Khan Mahar, former federal minister Sardar Raja Khan Mahar and former Sukkur district nazim, Nasir Shah, were present.

The Mahar brothers and Nasir Shah were also asked to negotiate with an influential Magsi family of Tando Allahyar, sources privy to the development told The Express Tribune.

Rahila Magsi, the former district nazim, and her brother, Irfan Gul Magsi, a former revenue minister, have been trying to join the Pir Pagara-led Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F). The PPP leadership wants to jump at the chance to woo different influential groups in Sindh.

“We were about to form an alliance with Pir Pagara, but there were some serious issues, which led us to withdraw from the deal,” Nasir Shah - a close aide of the Mahars - told The Express Tribune. He refused, however, to divulge more details when asked how the deal between the Mahars and the PML-F broke down.

At the meeting , the appointment of government officials under the new local government system was also discussed, he said. The issue of development schemes pending for many years also came up.

Matters relating to political situation, rain, development schemes and other issues were discussed at the meeting, the spokesperson of Chief Minister House announced.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2012.