PPP, MQM-P win over religious parties in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: With just a week before the general elections, the two strongest contenders in Hyderabad district — Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) — have won over support of two parties representing the Barelvi school.

Leaders of the PPP and MQM-P separately held press conferences in Hyderabad with leaders of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) and Sunni Tehreek respectively to announce their new allies.

PPP leader and former Sindh information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon held a press conference with Sahibzada Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair, who has earlier been elected an MNA from Hyderabad and now leads a faction of the JUP.

Zubair announced on the occasion that all the candidates of his party would withdraw in favour of the PPP across the country.

He explained that the JUP’s alliance with the PPP was not something strange as earlier the JUP’s Moulana Shah Ahmed Noorani had made the constitution of 1973 together with the PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

He also recalled that in the 2018 elections, the PPP had supported him and this time he was reciprocating that support.

Zubair added that he had spoken to PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and assured him of his support, on which Zardari promised that he would work with the JUP to ensure supremacy of the Constitution.

Memon dismissed the talks of postponing elections and termed them mere rumours. The elections are the solution to all the problems, he stated.

He said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had been indirectly opposing the elections. He alleged that Nawaz Sharif had kept his opponents in jail during his tenures and his party did not participate in the elections until it got a signal from elsewhere.

He remarked that Nawaz began electioneering the day when the electoral sign of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was taken away.

Memon asserted that many mega projects of the country, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), were given by Zardari, and but later, Nawaz hindered them.

He alleged that the PML-N considered one city as the entire country, due to which it could not show any of its projects in places like Sibi or Ghotki.

Memon asked whether Nawaz had built a hospital in any place of Sindh or Balochistan during his governments. “Even today, if Nawaz Sharif gets fever, he goes to London,” the PPP leader remarked. He said the PPP did not believe in the politics of revenge and it never arrested its opponents for vengeance. He added that his party won the 2018 elections in Sindh on the basis of its performance, and it also won the local government elections in the province.

He said Bilawal was a young leader bringing a fresh approach to politics while Zardari was still the king of politics as he was doing politics of reconciliation in true sense.

Meanwhile, the MQM-P and Sunni Tehreek held a joint press conference at the Haider Chowk election camp in which the latter announced its support for the former in all the national and provincial constituencies of Hyderabad.

Sindh Sunni Tehreek President Imran Suhrawardy said that in the interest of the people of Hyderabad, his party had announced its support for the MQM-P so that the two parties could jointly solve the problems of the city.

He added that the Sunni Tehreek had made seat adjustments with like-minded parties in all districts in Sindh.

Syed Waseem Hussain, member of the MQM-P Rabita Committee, termed the announcement of MQM-P’s alliance with the Sunni Tehreek a day of peace and fraternity for Hyderabad.

He said the MQM-P and Sunni Tehreek would forget the bitterness of the past and work together.