QWP leader calls for turning Pakistan into welfare state

PESHAWAR: Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) provincial Chairman Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao on Monday said the time had come to do away with the concept of the security state and establish a welfare state to serve the people.

He was speaking at a press conference at Watan Kor where the activists of the People’s Youth Organisation announced joining the QWP.The new entrants to the party included Ahmad Iqbal, Ghulam Haider, Mohammad Yousaf, Said Gul, Shafi, Alamzeb and others. They reposed confidence in the leadership of the QWP.

Speaking on the occasion, Sikandar Sherpao said the people cannot become prosperous the way the country was being run at the moment. Reiterating his party’s demand for introducing a new social contract, he maintained that other political parties had also developed consensus over the narrative of his party on this issue. He added that federation should be run in a way not to compromise on the rights of the federating units. The QWP leader said that though the former tribal areas had been merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the promises made with the local people were yet to be honoured. He expressed reservations over the passage of a bill from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, which declared the mines and minerals in the tribal districts as the property of the government. Sikandar Sherpao said the government should have taken the people of the tribal districts into confidence before introducing the bill. “The local people have the right of ownership over the resources in the tribal districts, and the government cannot deprive them of their due rights by making such controversial laws,” he said, adding that his party would stand by the residents of the merged districts. He added that his party would also convene an all parties conference over this issue.