HYDERABAD: Qaumi Awami Tehreek president Ayaz Latif Palijo has said that he does not think a man of great stature like Rasool Bux Palijo can be bought but believes those who surround him have been ‘bought’.

Pakistan Peoples Party regime manoeuvred everything in Sindh and got anything it wanted done in lieu of offers of vice chancellorship, chairmanship, allotment of forests land etc. People must resist PPP onslaught on Sindh, he said while addressing a well attended press conference at his residence on Monday.

Junior Palijo spoke with all due respect for his father, veteran nationalist politician Rasool Bux Palijo, and spelt out reasons that led to the revival of Awami Tehreek on Oct 2.

He described the day as the ‘day of emancipation’ for him and recounted events which showed that he and his father were not on same wavelength on many issues. He was the first elected party president who had to keep explaining why he did this or that. In July 2012 anti-Zulfikarabad march had to be cancelled which was to be launched under central committee’s decision, he said.

“In 2015, the process to push me against the wall got under way,” and senior Palijo did not like visits by Mumtaz Bhutto and Dr Zulfikar Mirza to the party’s hunger strikers’ camp against PPP’s corruption. “I was told why I always discuss PPP’s corruption,” he said.

He explained how the plan to stage a sit-in outside Bilawal House was altered and the sit-in was staged near Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine. “I had refused to announce the cancellation of the sit-in despite having received messages from sitting SSP of Hyderabad who warned me if I did not change the plan it might lead to adverse action,” he said.

“Palijo sahib told me you are trying to dramatise things. I told him that he should announce the cancellation himself. Later, it was done at Bilawal House in the presence of Faryal Talpur, Sharjeel Memon, Qaim Ali Shah and two of our relatives,” he disclosed.

Recently, he said, he was first allowed to launch anti-Zulfikarabad agitation but then asked shortly afterwards to postpone it till elections were held. “Should I protest against Shahbaz Sharif, Pervez Khattak, Dr Farooq Sattar and Fazalur Rehman for ruining Sindh?” he said.

He said that he was advised to discuss Bolshevik revolution, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Daesh or enforcement of Sharia as such subjects did not offend PPP government but “I am not supposed to speak on newborns’ deaths in Thar, closure of Rohri canal, sale of jobs etc”.

He said that PPP regime managed everything in Sindh and got whatever it wanted done in lieu of offers of vice chancellorship, chairmanship, allotment of forest land etc. “I can lambaste PPP but can’t do anything practically and I should not speak on Urdu television channels against PPP as it really matters,” he said.

He urged people to resist PPP and said “Sindh needs a new narrative. Socialism and communism did offer solutions in past but now a new solution is needed”.

He said that he had no qualms about working with Urdu speaking people but his father had told him AT was Sindhi only.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2016