HYDERABAD: Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan-Noorani (JUP-N) president Sahibzada Abul Khair Mohammad Zubair said on Thursday that he had agreed on seat adjustment with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for the Feb 8 elections in Sindh — particularly in Hyderabad — and Punjab after he failed to cobble together an alliance of like-minded religious parties.

He was speaking at a press conference along with PPP leader Sharjeel Inam Memon at the farmhouse of Waseem Rajput, a PPP candidate for NA-220, to formally announce the retirement of the JUP-N candidates, including he himself, in favour of the PPP’s aspirants. Waseem Rajput, Ajiz Dhamra and Fareed Qureshi were present on the occasion.

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Zubair said he, his candidates — including Rehman Rajput, Nazim Arain, Syed Mohammad Hassan and Mahmood Ahmed Qadri and others — would retire in favour of PPP’s candidates on NA-219 (Latifabad) and NA-220 (City) and their allies on provincial seats. He said he had tried to form an alliance of religious parties as a leader of Milli Yakjehati Council (MYC), but he did not get a positive response.

Asked his alliance with the PPP in 2018 did not yield good results, neither in Kasur nor in Hyderabad, and the PPP’s candidates stood third in the elections, he said that everyone in 2018 knew as to how the poll results were announced and polling agents were ousted from polling stations. He anticipated better results now.

In reply to another question as to how it suited him to form an alliance with secular PPP while he pursued strict religious teachings, Zubair said the religious parties had got the constitution passed with late Z.A. Bhutto and then the law against Qadiyanis was approved by parliament under the Bhutto’s government.

He said that it was agreed upon between him and Asif Ali Zardari that the parties would work jointly for the constitution’s supremacy. He vowed to try to counter all moves aimed at fomenting sectarianism, stressing that the PPP should serve Hyderabad and its people.

Sharjeel Memon welcomed Zubair’s decision while saying that PPP’s success in Feb 8 polls in Sindh was writing on the wall and claimed that the MQM-P was reluctant to participate in the poll.

Even the PML-N had not been ready to contest and they had to participate under PPP’s pressure and start its election campaign, he said.

He parried a question about Mustafa Kamal’s comments against the PPP in Karachi, saying that his comments did not merit a reply as the MQM leader wanted provocation.

He said that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had raised the slogan of ‘Chuno Naee Soch Ko’ (choose new thought), stressing people to give up the politics of hate.

He said the PPP did not believe in the politics of revenge and therefore, it was not celebrating the punishment of Imran Khan and his spouse.

He said the PPP wanted to maintain a safe distance from such politics. The PPP’s manifesto offered solution to everyone’s problems, he said.

Condemning the recent increase in petrol prices, he said Nawaz Sharif had not resumed politics until everything was settled for him, but the PPP believed that real taste of victory was in defeating someone.

He said that PML-N had ruled the county thrice, but it focused on only one part of the country. People knew Asif Zardari fulfilled promises, he said.

He said Nawaz did not belong to one city; he needed to represent the entire country in his narrative, which he failed to do. The PML-N didn’t build a single hospital in Punjab like the one set up by the PPP in Sindh, he said.

Memon said the PPP had made great strides in coal sector of Tharparkar, which had potential to change the destiny of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2024

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