KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Monday lashed out members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) for appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan to intervene in Sindh province.
Speaking on the floor of Sindh Assembly, Shah said whoever thought of Sindh’s division was himself shattered into bits and pieces.
“How many more pieces you still want yourself to be divided in,” he asked, prompting the MQM-P lawmakers to protest. The chief minister said they had always had only one leader, and the entire world acknowledged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
“Our leader is only one and we will continue to follow him. We are not like them, who abandoned their leader,” he said. “Why don’t you speak for your leader now?”
Shah’s remarks, which came during a policy statement on Thar Coal Power Project, led to a protest in House by the MQM-P lawmakers.
Speaker Siraj Durrani urged the protesting lawmakers to let the chief minister speak as he was giving a policy statement.
The chief minister said the dream of later former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was fulfilled with the completion of Thar Coal Power Project. He said this great project was completed with the efforts of Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto, despite impediments created by the federal government.
Shah also thanked former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf for facilitating the provincial government in providing sovereign guarantee.
He said more that Rs700 million had been invested in the project so far, adding that this was the beginning in the first phase, while construction work has been initiated pertaining to second phase of the project.
“This job is no less than making the country a nuclear-capable state,” the chief minister maintained.
It is pertinent to mention here that Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, MQM-P’s convener and minister for information technology, had on Saturday said that at present, Sindh was in crisis and a state of emergency.
Accusing the Sindh government of discrimination, he had said that ‘Mohajirs’ were harmed in the name of nationalisation.
The minister had complained of a “betrayal” in 18th Amendment, saying that a common Pakistani citizen was deprived of resources on the pretext of provincial autonomy.
He had said that it was the responsibility of the federal government to take measures against injustice in provinces.
“Article 149 is part of the constitution and is meant to be invoked,” Siddiqui had suggested.
