KARACHI, June 21: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has said that criticism or opposition to his demand of framing of a new Constitution or changes in the 1973 constitution was devoid of justification.

Addressing the Rabita Committee members in party's international secretariat, he remarked that his proposal was not without reasoning. It had a logic. If his demand was unjustified, intellectuals and the constitution experts should tell the people as to what guarantees have been held by the 1973 Constitution for provincial autonomy.

His suggestion of a new Constitution or fundamental changes in the 1973 document was meant to pull the country out of crisis it had been facing. Provinces were suffering from a sense of deprivation, and they were considering themselves victims of injustices and ethno linguistic particularism, and the problems for provincial autonomy were deepening with the passage of every day.

Late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had himself brought amendments to the Constitution within a short time of its approval by then parliament, and People’s Party during stint in office introduced several other amendments. But a mighty bombshell fell when former military dictator General Ziaul Haq inserted his name in the Constitution. When Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1988, she should have got the name of General Zia deleted from the Consitution which she did not do. "Who had stopped her from doing do?" Mr Hussain asked.

The MQM leader asked as to why the PPP leader did not institute trial against General Zia (in absentia) for abrogating the 1973 Constitution and for hanging her father which she sees as a murder.

Mr Altaf Hussain appealed to intellectuals and law experts to tell the people as to how much autonomy had been granted to the federating units and what guarantees had been held for their autonomy in the 1973 documents.

He said that the people had a right to know as to whether the defaced Constitution of 1973 was more important or the solidarity and integrity of Pakistan?

He said most of the political leaders and constitution experts themselves were saying that the face of the 1973 constitution stood disfigured, The MQM had not changed the face of the Constitution because it never had been in power at the centre, he said but promised that if voted to power at federal level, the Muttehada Quami Movement would resolve the issue of provincial autonomy and if could not do that, it would inform the people as to which were the forces obstructing it from attaining those objectives.