Sahibzada Sanuallah says city’s Pashtuns must not let their vote bank fall into the hands of religious and ethnic parties
Karachi
Karachi’s Pashtuns must not allow their vote bank to fall into the hands of religious and ethnic parties and collectively support the Pakistan People’s Party to have their issues addressed, Sahibzada Sanuallah, a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly member from Upper Dir district, recently told The News.
During his stay in Karachi, Sanaullah met with PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to discuss the political affairs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as issues related to the Pashtun community permanently residing in Karachi.
Along with the PPP Karachi Pashtun leader Dost Muhamamd Khan, he also visited many Pashtun-populated neighbourhoods in the city and met with party leaders and community elders.
“In the meeting, Bilawal listened to me seriously and assured me that issues related to the Pashtun community in Karachi would be addressed,” Sanaullah told The News at Khan’s residence in Landhi.
“I asked Bilawal to include Pashtun leaders with a good reputation in the community in the party’s organisational structure in the city.”
The lawmaker said the PPP was the only party that could be described as a symbol of the federation and was supported in the entire country by all ethnicities. “The Pashtuns residing in Karachi have isolated themselves from the mainstream by supporting religious and ethnic parties and thus splitting their strength and vote bank. The PPP is the only platform where they can play a collective role in the city’s politics and progress,” he maintained.
He noted that it was the PPP which had changed the name of the province from NWFP to Khyber Pakhunkhwa and met a decades-long demand of the Pashtuns.
KP govt’s performance
In the recent by-polls in the PK-93 constituency of the Upper Dir district held in September last year, Sanaullah had defeated the Jamaat-e-Islami candidate in the latter’s stronghold for the first time in 47 years.
Sanaullah said his victory indicated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led coalition government in the province had badly failed to deliver.
“The residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are surely disappointed with the performance of the PTI and its coalition partners and that is why they are looking at the PPP again,” he said.
“The PPP’s victory by bringing an end to the JI’s 47-year-old hold in the constituency indicates the former’s resurgence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.”
Sanaullah said now, at the behest of the JI, the provincial government was punishing the voters of his constituency by not carrying out any development work there.
“The provincial government has even failed in providing relief to the earthquake-affected people,” he observed.
“Bilawal has directed the party’s central leader, Khurshid Shah, to raise the issue of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s discriminatory attitude towards the PPP lawmakers in the National Assembly,” he said.
Women’s right to vote
Sanaullah had won his seat in the conservative region of Dir where politics was a “men’s only affair”.
In all the past polls, the contesting political parties had agreed not to allow women to exercise their right to vote.
However, in the recent by-polls in which Sanaullah succeeded, women were allowed to exercise their right for the first time in Dir’s history.
“This credit also goes to the PPP,” Sanaullah said. “Women’s votes helped me in winning the seat.”
He said the PPP was against the forced exclusion and marginalisation of women. “Despite resistance from conservative religious circles and other political parties, our party mobilised women in the polls for the first time and the result is in front of you.”