To reconnect with Lyari,PPP announces April 26 rally at Kakri Ground

Karachi
Declaring that the “people of Lyari belong to us and we also belong to Lyari”, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced that the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will hold a massive public event at the Kakri ground in Lyari on the 26th of this month.
“It is the same place where Shaheed [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto used to hold his gathering and Shaheed Bibi got married,” said the chief minister, who is also president of the party’s Sindh chapter, while visiting the Kakri ground on Wednesday.
Flanked by minister of kutchi abadis Jawed Nagori, who hails from Lyari, information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, CM’s coordinator on human rights Nadia Gabol and the entire leadership of Karachi division, the chief minister clarified that the PPP was going to hold a public meeting in Lyari at a time when it could not canvass for votes for any election.
He said the event will be held to promote the feelings of affinity, fraternity and cordiality in the entire city.
Through the event in Lyari, he said, the PPP will for the remaining of its tenure in the government, will embark upon a journey to improve the condition of Karachi. “The journey of developing Karachi will begin from Lyari and end in Malir,” he said.
In the past seven years since the PPP had been in government, said the chief minister, some Rs46 billion had been spent on development projects in Karachi.
He admitted that the party had faced a lot of criticism from many quarters for ignoring Lyari from where it garnered massive support from the masses.
He however, made a feeble attempt at defending the criticism by saying that the PPP tried its best to repair roads and drainage system in Lyari and spent Rs3.25 billion in this regard.
The chief minister also conceded that Lyari lagged behind in provision of educational and health services.
To change this, he said, the PPP was going to establish a general university in Lyari for which some 200 acres of land had been reserved. He said the government had also set up a public sector medical college in which a quota had been reserved for students from the backward areas of Karachi.
He said the principal of medical college was a Lyariite who while being fully qualified for the senior faculty position had also been selected on the basis of merit.
He also claimed that the Sindh government had been able to reopen between 12 and 14 schools in the area.
A journalist asked the PPP’s response to the statement of former PPP and MQM leader Nabeel Gabol in which he alleged that political leaders of Lyari were elected representatives of gang war elements.
Information minister Sharjeel Memon replied that Shahjahan Baloch was a member of the National Assembly elected from Lyari and so was Jawed Nagori was a provincial minister.
The chief minister remarked that he didn’t wish to respond on this statement since Nabeel Gabol had been missing from the PPP for the past few years.
When asked whether the PPP’s senior vice chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was currently disgruntled from the party leadership, will attend the April 26 meeting, the chief minister said Fahim had been out of the country for medical treatment the party prayed for his early recovery and return to the country. He said the PPP leadership had always stayed in touch with Fahim on party affairs.
The last major event held by the party was on Octoebr 18 last year at Qaid’s mausoleum when Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s entry into politics was formally declared by the party.
However, the people of Lyari had reportedly stayed away from the event after an elders’ committee was snubbed by Bilawal after it demanded that criminal charges against certain leaders of Lyari Amn Committee be withdrawn by the government.