Prime Minister Imran Khan will arrive in Karachi this Friday (tomorrow) to review federally funded development projects being built across the city. But Sindh’s chief executive has requested the premier to put off all such meetings where the former’s presence is necessary.
Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah made the request on Wednesday while talking to the media at the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, where he, Governor Imran Ismail, cabinet members and other senior government officials paid homage to the nation’s founder on his birth anniversary.
“I found out through the media earlier and now governor sahib informed me that PM sahib is coming to Karachi on the 27th, but every child in the country knows that we’re holding a public meeting in Rawalpindi on that day to observe the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto sahiba.”
Shah said his presence in the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) public meeting in Rawalpindi is necessary, because besides being the chief executive of the province, he is also a member of the party.
He said he also holds the position of the vice-president of the PPP’s Sindh chapter, so his presence in the Rawalpindi meeting has become all the more important. Asking the premier to postpone all such meetings during his Karachi visit where the CM’s presence is necessary, Shah assured him that he will come to Islamabad at a later date for the rescheduled meetings.
He said that even if the PPP had not been holding a public meeting in Rawalpindi, his presence in Karachi would have been practically impossible on December 27, because the PPP had been observing Benazir’s death anniversary in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh every year since 2008.
When a journalist asked if the date for the PM’s visit to Karachi had been chosen intentionally, the chief executive said he did not think that it had been done deliberately. He said he would later formally intimate the premier and the governor the request to defer such meetings of the PM in Karachi where the presence of the provincial chief executive is necessary. The CM said that earlier he did not go to the meetings chaired by the premier in Karachi during his past visits because he had not been officially invited to those conferences.
On a question about the progress of the Karachi Circular Railway’s (KCR) revival, Shah said they had requested the PM to help the provincial government develop the scheme further under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) because the KCR was already a part of the CPEC.
He said that during his meeting with the premier in Islamabad earlier in the week on the sidelines of the Council of Common Interests’ (CCI) meeting, he had informed the PM that being the CM it was his obligation to officially receive him whenever he arrived in Karachi on an official visit.
However, he added, for the purpose the information to this effect should be officially intimated to the chief executive of the province by the staff of the PM’s office. He expressed his gratitude to the premier for holding a longer meeting of the CCI in Islamabad because it had helped him a lot to raise the issues of his province and make progress towards resolving them.
He specifically mentioned the issue of consumption of natural gas, as it is being produced in the province and its usage has been guaranteed by the Constitution. He also discussed the distribution of water in accordance with the 1991 Water Accord and the federal government’s new renewable energy policy.
Shah said that the entire nation should observe the foremost principle and motto of the life of the Founder of the Nation — unity — because the nation needs to observe it now more than it has ever before needed to at any juncture in the country’s history.
He said the nation should observe unity in view of the Indian aggression and violent tactics being used against Kashmiris since August 5 this year, and also against the cruel policies of the Narendra Modi-led government that have been affecting Muslims in the neighbouring country.
The CM said that the Sindh Assembly has already passed a resolution unanimously to condemn the Indian aggression and the change of its citizenship law.
He urged Pakistan’s federal government to use every relevant forum, be it the United Nations or the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to mobilise the rest of the world against India’s violent tactics to suppress its Muslim population.
He said that the use of such tactics by the present Indian government is an issue that is not only affecting Muslims but it has also become a humanitarian issue.
