Qaim to stay as Sindh CM: Zardari

KARACHI: Former president and Pakistan People’s Party PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Monday ruled out the possibility of dismissal of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah.
He said that there was no possibility of governor’s rule in Sindh. It is not an easy task after the passage of the 18th Amendment, he claimed. “The chief minister of Sindh will not be changed. We are not afraid of the governor’s rule in Sindh,” Zardari told media persons at the Zardari House here. “I have no fear of ‘magic wand’ either,” he said, without elaborating.
He said the PPP would not allow democracy to be derailed and would try its utmost to strengthen the democratic institutions.The former president said the Safoora Goth carnage was carried out under a well-planned conspiracy. He also spoke out against his former friend and party dissenter Zulfiqar Mirza for the first time. “Zulfiqar Mirza used dirty language. He used to say that his home and clothes were due to Zardari and now he talks things which are beyond my understanding,” he added.
Zardari said that neither anybody could suppress the PPP nor kill it. He said the PPP had to face defeat in the last elections due to umpires and the PPP would get a large number of seats if elections were held now. He said that conspiracies were being hatched against the PPP in every tenure and we had faced it.
Zardari said that anarchy in the country was the result of the last martial law. He said that Karachi was a hub of peace, Lyari sheltered peaceful people and now Karachi should not be made notorious by giving the example of a bus incident. He said terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was higher than Sindh whereas majority of KP traders and industrialists had shifted to Islamabad. He said that Karachi was still the business hub of the country where majority of traders and industrialists were living. He said that there was a remarkable decrease in the incidents of extortion and terrorism in Karachi and there were some areas where disorder was created and where Rangers and police were taking action and offered sacrifices to eliminate the anarchy.
He said that Rangers and police were being given a free hand by providing several facilities and funds.While replying to a question in connection with the Karachi corps commander’s recent address, Zardari said that it was the part of training of armymen that they would stand up when the finger was raised and sit down when the finger was lowered, but practically it was not possible.
The former president said that the issue of the NFC Award would be solved soon. He said the present government of India was an extremist government and tension was escalated on the border with its coming to power in India. But, he said, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would take solid steps to de-escalate the tension.
Zardari said that peace in Karachi was being deteriorated under a conspiracy. He said that there was ‘Dakoo Raj’ in Sindh during the martial law regime. He said they had committed mistakes by supporting the Mujahideen who became the Taliban and then became Daesh.
On the question of MQM, he said that the MQM was weak but it was gaining ground. He said that a general dubs another general corrupt, a judge another judge, a journalist another journalist and a politician another politician, which was not a good thing. He said that Bilawal, Aseefa and Buktawar would convince offsprings of the older stalwarts of PPP to become active in politics because it was their time now.