Reactions: Protests follow Mirza’s swarm of allegations

HYDERABAD:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) estranged leader Zulfiqar Mirza’s tirade against the party’s co-chairperson, Asif Zardari, provoked protests by the PPP leaders and workers in several districts on Thursday.

In Badin, which is Mirza’s hometown, unidentified people tore down his posters, which included images of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. The supporters of Mirza and his local adversary, PPP MNA Kamal Khan Chang, took to the streets in Badin. Brandishing weapons, both the groups shouted slogans against each other. However, their separate locations prevented a clash.

In a television talk show on Wednesday, Mirza levelled accusations of corruption against Zardari. “He should try to contest elections independently of the PPP platform so that he realises that he is nobody without the PPP,” said Ali Akbar Jamali, the PPP president for the Nawabshah district, at a protest outside the Nawabshah Press Club.

Appearing unfazed by such reaction, Mirza said he will continue his struggle against those ‘making maps of a divided Sindh [a reference attributed to the MQM] and fake leaders of the PPP’.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2015.