HYDERABAD, Sept 10: The provincial leadership of the People’s Party Parliamentarians has demanded resignation of the Hyderabad district nazim for what it said his failure to provide relief to tens of thousands of people affected by rain.

If with any feeling for the people and sense of responsibility, he should have resigned, said Sindh party president Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro after visiting Latifabad and Qasimabad talukas.

Speaking at a news conference at the residence of party MPA Zahid Ali Bhurgari, they said people had no food to eat, no water to drink, but the district government was nowhere to be seen in the district.

Those who claimed to be the representatives of Karachi and Hyderabad had destroyed the two cities, they said.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that during his visit to Qasimabad, he had personally witnessed that agricultural lands and ancient villages were completely submerged under water and the people had neither food nor potable water.

He said the provincial and district governments were making only tall claims, but the people were dying of hunger and thirst.

Mr Shah said President Gen Musharraf had announced a development package of Rs10 billion, but the package had failed to save Hyderabad.

The rains, he said, had destroyed crops and properties worth billions of rupees in the Hyderabad rural taluka.

He demanded that the growers should be exempted from payment of land revenue and water charges and other taxes. Those who had lost their houses should be paid compensation, he added.

He said his party sympathised with all the people irrespective of the language they spoke, and vowed that his party would raise this issue on the floor of the assemblies.

Mr Shah claimed that the people were now cursing a particular organisation and supporting Benazir Bhutto.

He said the people were so angry that the chief minister, his ministers and functionaries of the district government did not visit the affected areas.

Those who had entered the corridors of powers through the backdoor were least concerned with the miseries of the people, he commented.

Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that following the recent rains, the Karachi city district government had failed, but the Hyderabad district government simply did not exist.

He said that not only of Hyderabad, but the people of interior Sindh had also been rendered helpless. He said the district nazim Hyderabad should resign.

Answering a question about a no-confidence motion against the deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, Mr Khuhro said his party would not withdraw its resolution. The People’s Party would continue to raise the problems of the masses forcefully on the floor of the assembly, he added.

He said the Sindh chief minister had nothing else to do except to paying frequent visits to Islamabad and appeasing his coalition partners.

People attending the press conference included MPAs Syed Murad Ali Shah, Syed Ali Nawaz Shah Rizvi and Ghulam Qadir Chandio, former Sindh minister Abdul Salam Thahim and Hyderabad taluka (rural) nazim Khawind Bux Jahejo.

The briefed the PPP leader on destruction following the recent rain.