Imtiaz Sheikh asks ECP to remove Sindh’s interim law minister

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Imtiaz Ahmad Sheikh, who served as the energy minister in the last elected Sindh government, has asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to remove provincial caretaker law minister Omer Soomro.

“If he [Soomro] is not removed from the caretaker cabinet, doubts will arise about the impartiality of the provincial caretaker cabinet,” Sheikh wrote in a letter to the chief election commissioner.

The PPP leader alleged that the Sindh caretaker law minister had been giving instructions to the administration and police in Shikarpur and Jacobabad districts in his official and unofficial visits against his political opponents.

He wrote in the letter that Soomro was involved in the appointment and transfer of officers in a manner that showed he wanted to support his father and close relatives in the upcoming general elections.

Sheikh claimed that according to his information, the provincial law minister was working against the PPP as a supporter of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He went on to state that it was clear that Soomro’s father Iftikhar Soomro or some close relative would contest the coming general elections.

The former energy minister said Iftikhar had served as the general secretary and president of the Sindh PTI and he contested the last general elections from PS-11 Shikarpur, in which he secured only 2,756 votes.

Sheikh said the caretaker law minister was also the provincial president of the PTI’s lawyer wing in 2017. “He has also been a member of the bar council on a PTI ticket and contested from PS-1 Jacobabad in 2018 and secured only 1,084 votes,” he added. The PPP leader demanded that the ECP take immediate action against the law minister in order to ensure fair elections.