Political alliance: Jamshed Dasti sets conditions for joining PML-N

Dasti has won two National Assembly seats from Muzaffargarh.

MULTAN:

Independent candidate Jamshed Dasti is set to join the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, sources told The Express Tribune.

Dasti, who won two National Assembly seats, NA-177 (Muzaffargarh-II) and NA-178 (Muzaffargarh-III), in the May 11 elections, was previously affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

According to sources, the PML-N has asked all district presidents of the party to invite independent candidates – including Dasti – into the party folds. They confirmed that Dasti is willing to join the PML-N.

However, Dasti spelled out four conditions for joining the PML-N. Firstly, he wants the PML-N support his candidate in the NA-178 by-elections as he is relinquishing this seat in favour of NA-177.  “I want to field a candidate who like me, belongs to the lower middle class,” Dasti says.

Secondly, Dasti calls for strengthening the Muzaffargarh link canal which, according to him, is a major threat to local residents. Thirdly, Dasti says that Muzaffargarh should not be left at the mercy of the bureaucracy, like it was done in the past. Lastly, he seeks exemption for labourers and daily-wage workers from fare in local transport at the district level.

Dasti, who had also won the 2008 election from Muzaffargarh, says that it took the people of Muzaffargarh decades to be free themselves from the clutches of feudal lords.

“Democracy is their [feudal lords’] tool to fool the poor people like us and nobody has ever visited the people in the constituency,” he says.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.