Amin Fahim tells Zardari ‘a few home truths’about PPP governance in Sindh

Karachi
Senior parliamentarian and president of Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP-P), Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has assured the PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari that there is no move in the pipeline to present a no-confidence motion in the Sindh Assembly against the incumbent Sindh chief minister.
Fahim gave this assurance to the party co-chairman and former president at a detailed meeting at the Bilawal House on Sunday afternoon.
Also present on the occasion were Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and PPP’s senior leaders including Senator Mian Raza Rabbani and Sherry Rehman.
Fahim conveyed to the PPP leadership his reservations regarding party affairs and governance matters in the province.
According to sources privy to the meeting, he expressed serious concerns over functioning and performance of PPP-led provincial government in Sindh and its increasing unpopularity among the masses.
He is said to have advised Zardari that ministers in the provincial government should be made completely empowered for initiating pro-people and popular policies for the masses of Sindh.
Fahim also tried to persuade the former president that key leaders of the party should be taken into confidence about major decisions regarding the party and governance matters in the province.
Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Fahim said he had no differences whatsoever with the PPP leadership. He said he had informed the party leadership that certain people concerned had valid complaints about how the PPP was ruling the province since their issues were not being addressed.
He said the PPP leadership in the province had to mend its ways, and, improve its performance and functioning otherwise resentment towards the PPP in the province will build and develop in the minds of the people.
Fahim said he had no knowledge about the political agenda of the former military ruler and ex-president Pervez Musharraf.
To follow up on matters discussed the day before, on Monday the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah met Amin Fahim’s son and Sindh Minister for Revenue and Relief Makhdoom Jamil-uz-Zaman on the directives of former president Asif Ali Zardari.
At the meeting held at the CM House, the chief minister directed the Zaman to supervise and head the ongoing relief operations being carried out in the drought-hit region of Thar desert.
Matters pertaining to administration, relief and governance issues pertaining to the native constituency of Makhdoom family in Hala near Hyderabad were also discussed in detail on the occasion.
It should be recalled that Makhdoom Amin Fahim had expressed serious reservations over awarding of the position of PPP’s senior vice-president to Sherry Rehman without consulting him or being him taken into confidence.
The differences between Fahim and PPP leadership had widened even more when he and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional chief of Pir Sibghatullah Shah Rashidi met former president Pervez Musharraf last month in Karachi.
After this meeting, senior PPP leaders including Syed Khursheed Shah, the leader of opposition in the National Assembly, and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on December 20 had dashed to Fahim residence in DHA to persuade him to resume his active role in the party affairs.
According to sources privy to the meeting, the meeting had continued for three hours and Fahim on the occasion had expressed his reservations over being categorically left out by the central PPP leadership in taking key decisions.
He had also reportedly said on the occasion that he would decide whether to resume his role party affairs after talking to his family members. Later on, Fahim had presided over a meeting of his tribe, the Sarwari Jamaat, in his hometown Hala near Hyderabad, and completely dispelled the rumors that he was parting ways with the PPP.
Subsequently, rumours had started circulating that a no-confidence motion was going to be moved in the Sindh Assembly against the incumbent Sindh chief minister and similar apprehensions were also expressed by Asif Ali Zardari when in his address at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on December 27 on the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto.
The Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians is the electoral formation of the PPP, which had been formed with Makhdoom Amin Fahim as its chief for contesting the 2002 general elections, during the era of former president General Pervez Musharraf when the late Benazir Bhutto had been in self-exile.