SUKKUR: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has observed that when government resorts to attacking state institutions, this is bound to weaken the state.

He was commenting on the severe criticism of the judiciary in an aggressive mood by certain federal ministers, their deputies and activists belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) ever since the announcement of the verdict in the infamous Panama Papers case.

Mr Shah was speaking at an Eid Milan party and later to the media in the Old Sukkur area on Sunday.

He said that after losing his office, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif along with his supporters resorted to taking to the streets raising the questions: “What crime have I committed?” and “Why did you oust me?” Mr Shah said “we [Pakistan Peoples Party politicians] did our best to make him understand the situation and developments but all in vain”.

“Now, he [Mr Sharif] and his associates are targeting state institutions and this will only defame institutions and weaken the state,” said Mr Shah.

Clarifying the PPP position in the wake of the verdict and PML-N’s strategy to defend its top leadership, Khurshid Shah said the PPP wanted the democratically-elected government to complete its tenure but due to the prevailing situation, the country was suffering huge losses. Elaborating, he noted that international community was shying away from investment in Pakistan and the country’s exports were also rapidly declining.

In reply to a question about achievements of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and its prospects in national politics, Mr Shah observed that those who were talking of “new Pakistan” could not bring about any remarkable improvement in the province which was being ruled by them for over four years. “We are committed to make Pakistan a country of Quaid-i-Azam’s and of [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto’s dreams,” he added.

US policy shift

Condemning the US policy shift vis-a-vis Afghanistan and the region as recently announced by President Donald Trump, Mr Shah observed that it is tantamount to threatening a state that had rendered great sacrifices for Afghan brethren. Regretfully, he added, today the friends in the US-sponsored war on terrorism were threatening Pakistan. He said Pakistan had spent ‘trillions of rupees’ of its own in the war on terror and thousands of its soldiers and other nationals laid down their lives during the [Afghan] war and the acts of terrorism associated with it. Had this huge amount of money been spent on development in Pakistan and on improving the lot of its people, the country would have been a developed one today, he argued.

The opposition leader was also critical of former president General Ziaul Haq, saying that it was he who had created Mujahideen in the name of Islam. “He had sold Pakistan to the US,” Mr Shah alleged, and observed that Gen Zia’s policies caused massive destruction in Pakistan and the Afghan war that he waged in pursuance with US policy left 60,000 Pakistani civilians and 20,000 security personnel dead although it was not a war of Pakistan.

Electricity crisis

Khurshid Shah also criticised the federal government for ‘injustice’ with Sindh in the power sector, observing that people of this province were being made to suffer unbearable loadshedding and extra outages and also had to pay inflated bills. He attributed the power crisis prevailing in the country to the use of furnace oil in generating electricity.

“Around 70 per cent of electricity in the country is generated through the use of furnace oil and this is the root cause of the crisis,” he said.

During his speech at the Eid Milan party, Mr Shah announced that a heart hospital that would be at a par with the country’s top hospitals was being established in Sukkur whereas the city would also have a women university and the biggest sports complex of the country soon.

Sindh Minister for Information Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and MNA Nauman Islam Shaikh were among the others who spoke at the party.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2017