HYDERABAD: Acting provincial president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shah Moh­am­mad Shah has announced that party chief Shahbaz Sharif will visit Hyderabad in the first half of May to meet people from different walks of life.

“We will contact people of Sindh and will give a narrative Hum nahin bhulai Sindh ko (we have not forgotten Sindh). He will preside over divisional conventions of the party in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Larkana and Karachi.”

The PML-N provincial leader was speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Tuesday. Other PML-N leaders present on the occasion were Khalid Shaikh, Shabbir Ansari and Khealdas Kohistani.

Mr Shah said Shahbaz Sharif had paid two visits to Sindh since he was elected president of the party and in his last visit to Karachi, he met activists of the party in the city, leaders of other political parties, industrialists etc.

He demanded that elections of 2018 must be held on time and the caretaker set-up should be brought in consultation with the leader of the house (prime minister) and leader of the opposition as per the Constitution of the country.

“Polls are approaching and they could not be prevented,” he said, adding that political parties were being weakened and broken as this was not good for the country.

He said nine seats of the National Assembly of the PML-N were reduced because of the newly-conducted census, but the PML-N accepted the decision as it did not want to delay general elections.

He said he was given responsibility of Sindh as acting president to speed up general election process, strengthen the party and mobilise activists in this regard.

He said the new body of the party consisted of Sindh acting general secretary Senator Saleem Zia, additional general secretary Tariq Chaudhry, and two senior vice presidents Aslam Abro and Munawar Raza.

He said the party elections would be held in the first week of May.

Criticising the PPP, he said former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, and Dr Asim Hussain were exempted from personal appearance in court, but Nawaz Sharif and his daughter were continuously being called for hearing.

He said that today a slogan was shouted to establish Seraiki province, although former PM Yousuf Raza Gilani belonged to south Punjab while PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari was a Seraiki Sindhi.

“Why have these PPP leaders not established Seraiki province in their regime?” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2018

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