Every party should be allowed to contest elections, says Murad

Hyderabad: Every political party should be allowed to contest the elections under the Constitution, said former Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah as he addressed a press conference at the Sahto House in Hyderabad on Friday.

Answering a question, he said it was not yet confirmed whether he would get a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) ticket to contest the general elections. He added that he would accept whatever the party decided.

He remarked that two years ago, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari started agitation with the aim of removing the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s government. The movement was successful and the government was changed, Shah added.

He said that after the no-confidence motion, the PPP offered to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to form the federal government.

He was of the view that weak parties were forming an alliance against the PPP in Sindh. He said the PPP would make any decision regarding political alliance after the general elections. The former CM claimed that the PPP would be the most successful party in the country after the elections.

Shah said the PML-N had become closer to the MQM but it had earlier decided in London that it would not talk to the MQM. He said the media should observe how Bilawal was received during his recent visits to Quetta and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Likewise, he added, the media should noted how the PML-N members returned after meeting with Sardars in a hotel. He said that on December 27, the PPP would hold a historic public meeting in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.

He also dismissed the criticism against recent delimitations. He asked which party’s seats had been eliminated from Thatta, Sanghar and Khairpur. He said everyone could see the speed of cases of Ladlas. Shah remarked that earlier the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was a nightmare for the PML-N, but now NAB and Nawaz Sharif were on the same page.

All the fake cases should be eliminated, he said. In response to a question, he said that every political party should have a level playing field. The PPP did not ask the PTI to end its government from two big provinces, and neither did it ask them to do the May 9 incident, he added.

He claimed that the PPP was the party that had never been called ‘Ladla’ till date. He said one party was made the Ladla before the 2013 elections and another before the 2018 elections. There should be no Ladla in the 2024 polls, Shah said.

Sindh PPP President Nisar Khuhro also addressed the press conference. He said the Election Commission of Pakistan should announce that the elections would be held on February 8, because earlier it was announced by the Supreme Court chief justice. The PPP would not accept any change in the elections date, he said. Khuhro remarked that political alliances were being formed because the individual parties did not have enough strength of their own.

He added that the elections of 2008 were also held in February, so it was not appropriate to make an excuse of snowfall.