PTI chief rails against venal rulers of Sindh

HYDERABAD/ KARACHI:

Imran Khan said on Friday that corruption and inefficiency of the ruling elite over the years had left the province of Sindh in a miserable state.

Speaking at a public meeting in Matli, a rural town of Badin, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief accused politicians and feudal lords of raking in millions and billions of rupees through corruption and transferring all their wealth to the Gulf states, Europe and America.

Imran, who was on a two-day visit to Sindh, said Karachi, agricultural potential of Sindh and the coal reserves of Tharparkar alone could bring prosperity and development for all the people.

The PTI chief claimed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province was a model of development where people’s rights were protected, jobs were given on merit and the police were not used for political purposes.  He raised the spirit of the crowd by asking them to courageously contend with the ruling party’s vindictive actions ahead of the local government polls. “Don’t worry if they frighten you or harass you or book you in fake cases. You have to stop worshipping this idol of fear,” he said.

Imran asked his supporters to pledge to undertake a vigorous campaign by going from house to house to request for votes for the PTI candidates. “Stop worrying and play till the last ball, because humans are endowed with only intent and effort, and success lies in the hands of the Almighty,” he said.

He also attacked Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari for allegedly causing massive financial losses to farmers in Sindh by supporting the owners of sugar mills.

He predicted the downfall of Zardari and Nawaz Sharif like that of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Saddam Hussain of Iraq and Colonel Qaddafi of Libya.

Verbal faceoff

Imran’s visit to Sindh turned into a diatribe against Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as he poked fun at the PPP chairman for reading out his political speeches.

In a belated reaction to Bilawal’s criticism of his style of politics, the PTI chief made fun of the PPP’s young leader for being a novice in politics and even offered mentoring him. “People become leaders through their struggles and not by siding with cruel rulers but by opposing them,” he chided Bilawal while addressing the PTI’s local government election candidates in Umerkot.

A day earlier, the PPP chief had ridiculed Imran by claiming the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and PTI only pretended to be rivals in Punjab but were allies against the PPP in Sindh. “In Sindh, balla (bat – election symbol of PTI) and shair (tiger – election symbol of PML-N) are friends,” he had said. He also taunted Imran by saying the PTI would not get any votes in Sindh.

“Bilawal was reading from a written script. He should first tell us why he made this speech. Such speeches are not delivered in democracies but only in monarchies,” Imran said while speaking in Umerkot.

Upon his arrival at Karachi airport after winding up his two-day visit ahead of the second and third phases of local government elections, he said the performance of provincial government had been poor in Sindh. “Farmers of Sindh are living in poverty, they don’t get their money on time,” said Imran, accusing former president Zardari of owning a number of sugarcane mills, but not paying farmers.

Bilawal’s response

Responding to the PTI chief’s criticism, the PPP said the PTI chairman’s s speech was nothing more than an outcome of a heavy breakfast he had eaten. The Bilawal House spokesperson said politics and wisdom were not confined to a certain age.

“If anything, there is the age of retirement which Imran Khan has passed,” he said responding to Imran’s remarks on Bilawal’s age and his style of politics.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2015.