Those getting wickets could not save their own wicket

KARACHI: A prominent female leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Naz Baloch on Sunday announced to leave her political party to join the Pakistan People's Party.

The announcement to this effect was made by the woman PTI leader at a press conference held here at the media cell of the PPP near the Bilawal House. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and PPP Women Wing President Faryal Talpur, PPP leader Saeed Ghani, Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal, other leaders of the party were also present on the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Naz Baloch said it seemed that she had returned home as her father had joined the PPP at the hands of the founder of the party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She said it was certainly an unusual political phenomenon, which could astonish the people that someone who had been associated with Imran Khan had now decided to join the PPP. She said that her services were more for the country rather than for Imran Khan.

The new entrant to the PPP said that she had spent good time with Tehreek-e-Insaf but now she had decided to part ways with her parent political party as the PTI had deviated from its manifesto and objectives. She said that at present the PTI had been under occupation of the “elders” as youth of the party had been rejected.

Baloch said that she had rendered countless services for protest sit-in of the party in the past but at the moment she was not in the mood of doing mud-slinging on her parent political party. “All this happened when the PTI got itself changed while continuously raising the slogan of change. This is not the party for which we had started working for,” she said.

She advised the PTI chief Imran Khan to save whatever party had been left with him. Naz Baloch said that she had actively worked for the PTI as she had remained active for managing social media wings of the party. She said that the PTI had limited itself just to Punjab and had been merely doing politics of the Centre.

She said that PTI chief Imran Khan didn’t pay attention to Sindh though the party in the 2013 general elections had secured over 800,000 votes from the province, especially from Karachi. She said that activists of the PTI in Sindh had been compelled to leave their party as Tehreek-e-Insaf had not been focussing on Sindh and Karachi. “This is because that Imran Khan used to visit Karachi for a span of a few hours and even during this time, workers of the party were made to stay away from him. I drew the attention of Imran Khan that he should duly give time to Karachi and its workers as ideological workers of the party were getting disappointed."

Baloch said that she had go through extreme sense of deprivation while working for the Tehreek-e-Insaf as afterwards she requested Imran Khan several times to duly pay attention to the party. “But he (Imran Khan) ignored the party’s activists as in contrast to the People's Party which even chose activists of the party for the post of the prime minister and gave them due honour”.

She alleged that just male leaders of the party were taking administrative decisions of the PTI as women leaders were made to stay away from such party affairs. “The youth activists of this party have been just confined to social media,” she said.

She said that the PTI had lost the recent by-election on the Sindh Assembly constituency in Karachi as virtually the game of “musical chairs” was being played among four people of PTI as every time one among these four leaders was chosen as the president of Karachi chapter of the party.

She said that owing to lack of attention by the leadership of PTI, the party had lost whatever mandate it had earned in Karachi in the last general elections. “I don’t want to level allegations against the PTI but just want to say to Imran Khan that he should concentrate on affairs of the party before it is too late for him to act,” he said.

“My journey with the PTI has ended as this is not the glamour which was being searched for. I even eulogized the services of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto during my time with the PTI,” she said. “My services being a daughter of Karachi under the leadership of Imran Khan are not a secret to anyone,” she said.

Speaking on the occasion, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah welcomed Naz Baloch into the PPP saying that with her inclusion, the party would be further strengthened. The CM said that there was a time when his and Naz Baloch’s father were colleagues in the assembly. He said that the PPP had been able to defeat a number of political parties, which contested the latest by-poll in Karachi on the constituency of Sindh Assembly PS-114. He said that in the next general elections, the PPP would emerge victorious from the entire country as his party would not be affected if someone decided to leave the party.

He conceded that water was a serious issue of the province owing to which the Water Commission had authored its report as efforts were being made to ensure supply of clean potable water to dwellers of the province.

The Sindh CM said on the occasion it seemed that the Sindh governor had least interest in the province. “The Sindh governor is the representative of the Federation here as he should duly pay attention to the province which seems nowhere to be seen,” he said.

Regarding the law recently passed by the Sindh Assembly to strike down the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 (NAO) in the province, the CM said that former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had imposed the NAO when a state of emergency was declared in the country. He said that lawmakers of the Sindh Assembly had been briefed in detail when the bill was moved in the house to strike down NAO in the province as the assembly would once again discuss whatever objections were raised to this new law by the governor while not giving his (the governor’s) assent.

He said that opinion of Sindh governor on the new bill passed by Sindh Assembly to nullify NAO in the province was not new as earlier this bill had been granted indemnity by parliament in the 17th Constitutional Amendment.

He said that the governor was rightful enough to return the newly-passed law without giving his assent. “Despite being the governor of the province, his interest is not the same as that of the province,” he said.

He said that earlier the Supreme Court had already ruled that “the NAB had died the other day”. The CM said that the bill to strike down the NAO in the province would once again be moved in the assembly along with the observations of the governor.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP leader Faryal Talpur said that at present PPP was spreading in the entire country and would secure a major victory in the coming general elections. She hoped that Naz Baloch would further the mission of her father. “Our doors are open for everyone as Naz Baloch has rejoined her own family,” she said.