‘Murad to remain Sindh CM till 2023 despite campaign against him’

Sindh Information and Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has said Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has made it clear that Murad Ali Shah will continue to be the chief minister of Sindh till the completion of his five-year term in 2023.

Nasir stated this on Sunday while speaking at a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club organised by the PPP against prolonged imprisonment of its senior leader and former federal minister Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah and filing of a reference against the Sindh CM reportedly by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The provincial information minister said on the occasion that the Sindh CM had been playing a central role to materialise the vision of the PPP chairman regarding governance in the province. “This fact is unacceptable to some people as any issue is created against the Sindh chief minister like every other day,” he said.

The PPP was not frightened due to the filing of cases and the threat of imprisonment of its leaders, Nasir maintained. He said Khursheed had been imprisoned for the last two years for speaking the truth and remaining loyal to the PPP. The present federal government was in the habit of falsely accusing its political opponents and victimising them, he added.

He said the present federal government had been sticking to the policy of lodging baseless cases against its political rivals in order to harass them. The leaders of the PPP were being singled out in the name of the ongoing accountability drive in the country, he claimed.

Nasir alleged that the present accountability drive was partial as it was based on the nexus of NAB and the federal government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He said NAB had not been taking any action against those who were part of the federal government. The NAB chairman should remain impartial while taking decisions with regard to the accountability campaign in the country, he added.

Talking to media persons on the occasion, the Sindh information minister said the federal cabinet had taken the decision in haste to pay money to the British firm Broadsheet. He added that the entire deal of NAB with the Broadsheet was shady as due formalities had not been fulfilled.

He alleged that people associated with the present government had approached the Broadsheet to get their share in the deal. He said the incumbent chairman of NAB should immediately file a reference on the Broadsheet scam as people named in the case should be arrested so that the nation could know the facts of the deal.

The Broadsheet episode had emerged as a test case for the NAB chairman, Nasir said. He remarked that no reference would be filed in this case if the allegation that the ongoing accountability campaign was based on the nexus of NAB and the federal government was true.

To a question, he responded that the meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement had decided to table the no-confidence motion in the National Assembly against the prime minister as the viewpoint of the PPP chairman in this regard was the same as decided earlier by the opposition’s all parties’ conference.

He clarified that a democratic way would be adopted to get rid of the PTI’s federal government. The PDM was united and acting upon its earlier decisions, he said. According to Nasir, the only provincial government in the country that had been undertaking development works in the real sense was the Sindh government.