SUKKUR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chair­man Imran Khan has claimed that his party will defeat Asif Zardari in Sindh in collaboration with the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) and then “Zardari will be sent to Adiala jail where Nawaz Sharif is awaiting him”.

Addressing a public meeting at Numaish Ground in Jacobabad on Tuesday, he said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had ruled Sindh for 10 years but failed to provide clean drinking water to the people of the province and that was why they were suffering from ailments like hepatitis.

Read: PPP losing ground to PTI in Dadu

He said that according to a United Nations report, 75 per cent of Sindh’s people and 87pc of Thar residents were living below poverty line. Similarly, he said, 40pc of women and 70pc of children living in the province faced malnutrition which was also causing deaths. “Yet the slogan of ‘Bhutto Zinda Hay’ (Bhutto still lives) is raised,” Mr Khan deplored.

According to a report submitted to the Supreme Court, Sindh’s 80pc water was not fit for human consumption and its consumption was also contributing to spread of hepatitis, he said.

He said that the people of Sindh did not have access to health and education facilities of better quality.

During its decade-long rule in the province, the PPP had failed to deliver, the PTI chief said and urged the people of Sindh to “wake up now”.

He alleged that the PPP candidates were harassing the PTI candidates through policemen recruited during PPP rule in Sindh.

On receiving such complaints, he added, police were not taking action and were acting like silent spectators.

He alleged that false cases were being lodged against the candidates of the PTI and the GDA at the behest of the PPP.

He said that if the people of Sindh were aspiring for change they would have to support PTI/GDA candidates to do away with the PPP.

He said that the previous PPP governments had failed to build better infrastructure in the province.

On the other hand, he said, the PTI government had had reformed and depoliticised police force and improved healthcare centres and other infrastructure in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that it had been learnt that Rs44bn corruption had taken place in Jacobabad but there was no one to question it. He said that the people of the area should rise to the occasion to bring about a change as tactics of “threats and harassment” would not work now.

Imran Khan urged the people to vote for bat, the PTI’s electoral symbol.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2018