Talks were held at the residence of PML-N Sindh Chapter President Shah Muhammad Shah in Karachi. Both the parties denounce MQM’s ethnic politics.
Karachi
Pakistan People’s Party has once more shown its willingness to further amend the local government law to ensure that the devolution of powers to the grassroots level takes place in the province in the real sense.
The PPP made such an offer as a delegation of the party led by Sindh Information and Labour Minister, Saeed Ghani, held talks with the provincial and local leaders of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) here at the residence of Shah Muhammad Shah who is president of party’s Sindh chapter.
While jointly addressing a press conference after the talks, the PPP and PML (N) leaders said that they wouldn’t allow the promotion of politics on the basis of ethnicity in the province on the issue of municipal governance.
The People’s Party’s delegation assured the PML (N) that the Sindh Finance Commission would be made functional soon after holding the forthcoming local government polls in the province.
Saeed Ghani, who is also PPP Karachi Division President, said on the occasion that municipal agencies had been made more empowered through the passage of Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill-2021 as compared to the situation in the aftermath of the enactment of Sindh Local Government Act-2013. He recalled that the Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah the other day had assured the Sindh Assembly that the latest local government amendment bill had not attained finality as the law was open to further amendments.
He mentioned that they had invited the concerned stakeholders to come forward for the purpose. He said the opposition lawmakers had unduly created a fuss in the Sindh Assembly the other day as twice they hadn’t bothered to present their proposed amendments to improve the new local government amendment bill as they preferred to keep on doing agitation in the house in the usual fashion.
He said the Opposition Muttahida Quami Movement, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and other opposition lawmakers in the house had adopted an utter undemocratic attitude in the house. He said the opposition had every right to criticize the working of the government and put forth suggestions to improve it but it couldn’t dictate the majority party in the house.
To a question, Saeed Ghani said he had earlier stated several times that the MQM had once more had the desire to cause violence on the basis of ethnicity in Karachi as for the purpose it had displayed banners in order to accentuate ethnic fault lines and urban and rural divide in the province. He said the people of Karachi and the rest of Sindh wouldn’t allow at any cost that the politics on the basis of prejudice and ethnicity succeeds again.
The PML (N) Sindh President said on the occasion that he belonged to a federal and democratic party and they didn’t believe at all in the politics done on the basis of ethnicity. He said that they always considered Sindh as a single entity as there was no division in the province from Karachi to Kashmore. He said his party also wanted that the process of devolution of powers was completed in Sindh. He welcomed the gesture of the PPP that it was ready to further amend the provincial local government law. He said that they wanted such a local government system, which was available to serve the people of Sindh on a uniform basis without any discrimination.
To a question, Shah said that although the PML (N) had attended the All Parties Conference held the other day (organized by MQM) but it had not yet signed the joint communique of the APC as the party would come up with its point of view on the issue after consulting the top leadership of the party.
Former Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair said they were pleased that the PPP had assured them to further amend the provincial local government law. PML (N) leader Miftah Ismail said that Sindh had already endured much harm due to politics done on the basis of ethnicity as instead politics should be done on the basis of performance.
The PPP delegation also comprised of Special Assistant to Sindh Chief Minister, Waqar Mehdi, Salman Murad and Khalid Lateef. The PML (N) was also represented in the talks by Syed Munawar Raza, Kheal Das Kohistani, Chaudhry Muhammad Tariq, Khawaja Shoaib, Feroz Khan, Raja Ansari, Khalid Shaikh and others.
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Sindh Courier
