Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Monday strongly emphasised that “under no condition would Sindh share powers with anyone”.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, he said that although the Sindh government was willing to work with the Centre to resolve the city’s issues, no power-sharing agreement had been reached.
His statement comes a day after Karachi’s three political stakeholders – PPP, PTI and MQM-P – agreed to take joint measures for the betterment of the country’s commercial capital.
According to reports, a senior member of the security establishment flew to Karachi on Saturday to have all the three parties sit together so that they could mutually find a solution to Karachi’s problems that have been troubling the top military leadership for quite some time.
The meeting was the second of its kind as less than a week ago key representatives belonging to the provincial and city administration as well as political parties were called to Islamabad to discuss options on Karachi. Initially, they said, the PPP was reluctant to share power with other parties, but the establishment persuaded the ruling party in Sindh to agree to the arrangement. According to reports, this is not an alliance, but it will end rumours being spread deliberately that the federal government was going to take over Karachi or impose a governor’s rule in the province.
However, in Monday’s press conference, Murad Ali Shah clarified that “under no condition will the executive power of the Sindh province, Sindh government [and] the Sindh Assembly, given to it under the Constitution, be shared with anyone.”
He said there had been a number of discussions over the last few days regarding the issue by people seeking to “harm the Constitution” or “cause harm to my dear country”.
He noted that the constitution has set out the powers for all of Pakistan’s four provinces. “These talks [about taking away Sindh’s powers] are not new … enemies of the country have discussed this previously,” Shah said.
“Sindh is our mother. Whoever talks about dividing it into pieces, we will all stand against them. When I delivered a speech in the [Sindh] Assembly and asked people supporting this to stand up, a few people kept sitting. These are the people whom I will not call enemies of Sindh but enemies of Pakistan.”
He said anyone with any misconception needed to understand that Sindh’s executive powers will not be shared with anyone under any condition.
The chief minister also requested the media to not propagate such ideas either because he said it “causes sadness to the people of Sindh”.
He said this was not the first time such discussions were taking place and such things are brought up in order to “divert attention” from the prevailing issues.
Without naming the federal government, he continued: “Do we not know the issues right now? What India is doing to Kashmiris [and] the diplomatic mistakes you have made. Now you have to divert attention and you can’t find anything other than the PPP, Sindh government and Karachi.
“Karachi is the biggest city, capital of Sindh and it runs the entire country, we know all this. You hide even your biggest disasters from the media while the smallest story about Sindh [is highlighted].”
Murad Ali Shah admitted that the “condition got bad” in Karachi during the recent rains after which the talk of usurping Sindh’s powers started, but added that things were probably worse in other parts of the country where it also rained. “The PPP invested in Karachi over the last 10 years which is why its condition was better,” he said.
“All over the world, if the capacity of storm-water drains is less than the rainfall, then problems arise. We have additional problems [in Karachi], there is no disagreement on that. After these rains, when [the aftermath of the rains] was discussed, these things were taken to the Supreme Court and the chief justice issued some instructions.”
