Sense of deprivation: ‘Stop treating us as second-class citizens’

We were promised a province: Durrani.

BAHAWALPUR:

“Instead of the restoration of Bahawalpur province and the creation of a southern Punjab province the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had promised in its election campaign, they have announced a mini-secretariat...but we [the people of Bahawalpur] are not second class and we reject this secretariat,” Bahawalpur Province Restoration Movement leader Muhammad Ali Durrani told media at a Meet The Press programme on Friday.

He said the Punjab Assembly had previously approved a joint resolution for the restoration of the Bahawalpur province and creation of a southern Punjab province. The government has backtracked from its promises, Durrani said.

“The only reason why the people of Bahawalpur had put their faith in the PML-N was that they believed the Sharif brothers’ promises to return Bahawalpur to its former glory,” he said. Durrani said PML-N candidates from Bahawalpur had bagged 12 out of 15 National Assembly seats in the area – the PML-N’s biggest victory to date. It is government’s moral and legal duty to restore the Bahawalpur province and fulfil the promises they had made to the people.

Durrani said, “If the government goes ahead with establishing a secretariat in south Punjab, the people of Bahawalpur will feel that they are second-class citizens...this will increase their problems instead f solving them.”

Bahawalpur lies at a strategic junction wherein the main railway line and Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar (KLP) Road pass through Bahawalpur City, he said. Yet the Lahore to Karachi Motorway lies far off from Bahawalpur, on a much longer route. If it passed through the district, it could save construction and travel time as well, said Durrani. “The government’s current policy will spell the financial doom of Bahawalpur,” he said. The people of Bahawalpur played an important role in the creation of Pakistan...yet the government treats them as second class citizens.

He said the elected representatives of Bahawalpur should uphold the people’s mandate and take note of the Punjab chief minister and the prime minister’s cruelty towards their people. Durrani said the 160-kilometre long road connecting Bahawalpur to Bahawalnagar has not even being made one way. He said the government must complete the project on priority and construct an Express Highway so that the “sense of deprivation we people face can be reduced.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2014.