‘Anti-PPP forces using Mirza for their agenda’

Karachi
Female MPAs of the Pakistan People‘s Party on Sunday took a strong stand against the derogatory statements uttered by former PPP member and provincial home minister, Zulfiqar Mirza, against MNA Faryal Talpur, the sister of party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, who now heads the party’s women’s wing.
The MPAs, led by Shehla Raza and Sharmila Faruqui, asserted that the former home minister was trying to bite the very hands that had fed him, all at the behest of anti-PPP and anti-democracy forces.
They categorically condemned the words used by Mirza and said he had insulted the traditions of Sindh by insulting a female colleague who had the status of a senior family member in the party.
The MPAs challenged Mirza to an electoral duel anywhere in the province and maintained that any female MPA could beat him to a seat in the provincial assembly.
Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza likened the former home minister to “a pet bird whose strings were being pulled by ‘other‘ forces”. She alleged that Mirza, in his recent trip to Dubai, had met the very people who had planned an attack on the office of PPP member Javaid Nagori.
“On one hand, Mirza sahab claims that Bilawal is his leader, but on the other he fraternises with the killers of our brother MPA,” she said before media personnel.
Shehla urged called on the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to take notice of the contentious remarks being made by a figure no more of any political value.
The MPAs stated that not only Mirza, but his wife and son were also party‘s office-bearers who owed their political clout to the party, claiming that Mirza had only been successful in his quest for the Badin seat due to Asif Zardari’s support.
“If it weren‘t for the PPP and Asif Zardari, no one would know Zulfiqar Mirza nor would his wife as the first female speaker of the National Assembly.”
Talking to The News, Shehla Raza said Mirza was acting on the directives of the same forces that had forced Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Javed Hashmi to take 180 degree turns in their political careers and join Imran Khan‘s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
“These anti-PPP forces made them all come together. Same is the case with PTI MNA Azam Swati,” she said.
“Along with them, Mirza is also being played. But insulting women, especially of your own political family, is simply unacceptable. Enough is enough. We reserve the right to respond to his statement and if he dares to contest an election against any of us, we are confident his machoism would not be able to prevent his defeat.”
“If the PPP is as corrupt as Mirza claims it is, why didn‘t he see any of this when he was in power? Similarly, why did he later let his son contest and get elected on a PPP ticket?” she asked.
Sharmila Faruqui, the PPP’s information secretary for Sindh, claimed that Mirza himself used to admit that even the clothes on his body were because of the kindness of Asif Ali Zardari and the PPP family.
She said Mirza was flouting the same values he was claiming to uphold by insulting a senior female colleague. “Even his wife, who is a PPP MNA, would not approve of insulting a senior colleague and a woman this way,” she said.
Other female PPP members at the press conference included Shamim Mumtaz, Shugufta Jumani, Irum Khalid, Ghazala Siyal, Seemi Farhat, and Rubina Qaimkhani.