PTI plans to give Sindh govt a tough time

Following the formation of an alliance of opposition parties against the federal government in an all-parties conference on Sunday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has been planning to give the Pakistan People’s Party a tough time in Sindh where it rules and to expose its performance.

On Sunday, the country’s major opposition parties announced the launching of a three-phased campaign against the PTI-led federal government under an “action plan” starting next month with countrywide public meetings, protest demonstrations and rallies in December, and a “decisive long march” towards Islamabad in January.

To give the opposition a tough time and counter their anti-government campaign, the PTI has been planning strategies. The PTI and its allied Balochistan Awami Party have been ruling the provinces, except Sindh.

In this regard, PTI Sindh parliamentary leader Haleem Adil Shaikh met the party’s chief organizer, Saifullah Niazi, to discuss strategies to counter the campaign of the opposition parties, particularly the PPP.

However, Shaikh said the party’s Sindh leaders had sought permission from the party’s top leadership to initiate a campaign against the opposition parties. He said the PPP leaders were frightened of their politics’ logical end and the popularity of Prime Minister Imran Khan, and it was the reason that they were trying to disrupt the federal government’s development and social welfare efforts.

On Monday, PTI Karachi president and MPA Khurram Sher Zaman, along with other leaders, spoke at a press conference and criticised the opposition parties. He said the culprits’ faces had been exposed to the public during the opposition’s all parties’ conference.

“The PPP’s head, Asif Ali Zardari, and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Nawaz Sharif used to call each other a national thief until a few years ago, but now both the thieves are preparing for a movement against Pakistan,” he said.

“Why doesn’t [PPP co-chairman] Bilawal take this movement to Larkana, Nawabshah and Dadu? Call Shahbaz Sharif and start this movement in Nawabshah,” he said. “Why don’t they see how the people of Nawabshah are suffering? Why don’t they run a movement for the children of Tharparkar who are starving?”

Interviews with PTI Sindh leaders suggest that the party’s MNAs and MPAS will be asked to visit different parts of the province and expose “bad performance” of the provincial government.

“We are currently discussing effective ways to expose the poor provision of civic facilities and publicise at maximum level,” said a PTI leader, who is familiar with the development. “They [PPP lawmakers] will take photos and make videos to present them on social media as evidence.”

However, the PTI leaders also feared that unfriendly relations between the two parties after the announcement of the anti-government campaign would badly affect the Karachi development and infrastructure projects under the mega Karachi package worth Rs1.1 trillion announced by the federal government.