Muttahida to table bill in NA to carve new province from Sindh

In the wake of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) plan to table a bill to form the South Punjab province, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) seeks to table a bill in the National Assembly to carve a new province from Sindh on an administrative basis.

The MQM-P first organised a rally in Karachi’s Bagh-e-Jinnah on April 27 to announce a campaign for the new province. On May 13 the party leaders gathered at the Hyderabad Press Club to reiterate their stance on creating more administrative units in Sindh.

MQM-P MNA Syed Aminul Haque told The News that after tabling the bill in the parliament, his party will ask the PTI, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and other political parties to support the demand for a new province in Sindh.

“We demand that the new province be formed on an administrative basis, not on linguistic or ethnic,” said Haque, who is also the party’s spokesman.

He said the reason his party has been making this demand is to ensure the development and progress of all communities living in the province.

The MNA claimed that all the political parties, especially the PTI, have now realised that the Pakistan Peoples Party has been acting as a biased ethnic party and completely denying Sindh’s various ethnic communities — especially Mohajirs, Punjabis and Pashtuns — their due shares in development and jobs.

“Raising voice for making more provinces is not treason, as the Constitution allows the creation of new administrative units,” he said. He also said the 18th amendment has caused tension between new majorities and minorities in Sindh.

“The Sindh government has not convened a single meeting of the Provincial Finance Commission, and it’s not giving funds and due powers to municipalities of the urban centres, such as Karachi and Hyderabad.”

Haque said residents of the province’s urban centres are frustrated with the government’s biased attitude, adding that the MQM-P’s campaign for creating a new province is gaining traction among them. He claimed that major political parties, such as the PTI and the PML-N, have hinted at supporting the MQM-P’s proposal to bring the bill in the parliament.