The PML(N) chief has stated that Sindh card has expired and he is using Pakistan card to woo Sindhis during his speeches in interior Sindh. In the same breath he has said that KBD case may not be promoted as Sindh has same reservation on it.
This shows that the PML(N) chief inadvertently falls back on the Sindh card in backtracking on KBD. I remember that during a visit to Raiwind residence the venerable late father of PML(N) chief Mian Muhammad Sharif had disclosed to the scribe that Mian Sahib was going to announce the building of KBD which was subsequently done at the time of exploding six nuclear devices by Pakistan in response to five of India.
However, later on, PML(N) chief probably got cold feet due to opposition of some political parties. There was yet another occasion when KBD agreement could have been achieved from ANP when the former NWFP was going to be renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Here also the historic chance to tame the ANP to drop its rabid opposition to KBD was blown by compromising on the removal of ban on third time primeministership and forgetting the KBD issue altogether.
This was nothing short of a national betrayal of historic proportions. As such to talk now of an expired Sindh card does not behove the PML(N) chief as KBD is a Pakistan card in personam being the only guarantee for saving Pakistan. The World Bank has recently stated that Pakistan is losing four billion US dollars annually in industrial shutdown due to inability in building KBD.
Pakistan is faced with an existential threat due to its water and energy woes while India goes ahead to build scores of dams on our Western rivers ostensibly to generate power. Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf had a go ahead to build the dam and complete it in his period but the general lacked the guts to do it by being hamstrung by the MQM supremo. So the bus of KBD has been missed repeatedly at the altar of political expediency and no amount of wooing now in Sindh is going to help as the key of KBD lock is in the hands of PPP which they are destined to use it or lose it at their own peril.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore