Daily Times

Addressing a huge gathering arranged to respond to what has been called a planned and manipulative attempt to deride the Sindh People’s Local Government (SPLG) Act, Pakistan People’s Party categorically laid its claim to the Sindh card. The Hyderabad rally in Jinnah Park was important because of the presence of the PPP top leadership like the former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Minister of Information Qamar Zaman Qaira, Commerce Minister Amin Fahim, and Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah and others. The thrust of the speeches delivered in the rally was on the PML-N’s role, in supporting the Sindhi nationalist parties in order to create political crisis in Sindh. The rally served multiple purposes; at the national level it was a message sent loud and clear that the PPP’s support in interior Sindh is intact; for the dissidents inside the party it was meant to dispel the impression of the party’s inability to prove its strength in Sindh; to the nationalists and other political parties it was meant to put them in their place on the Sindh political canvas. On the other hand the Sindhi nationalist parties united under the banner of the Save Sindh Committee (SBC) to declare it a black day and reject the SPLG Act. Reiterating its position, the SBC has refused to give in unless the Act is taken back.

SPLG has gathered storm around it since its inception. From the drafting of the bill to its getting passed by the Sindh Assembly in a matter of five minutes, every step was considered undemocratic and an attempt to mollycoddle the MQM. The nationalist parties of Sindh united in their attempt to thwart the Act, fearing they would find themselves further marginalised by the urban-rural divide the new local government Act would create by developing two different local bodies administrative systems in the province. The timing of the bill, when general elections are only months away, was also upsetting, as local governments could help in political mobilization at the grassroots level. There was disquiet over the Act inside the PPP as well that saw it as a seed of discord within Sindh.

In the PPP’s version of events, the fury over the SPLG was fuelled by the PML-N in its bid to gather the support of the nationalist parties in Sindh in the upcoming general elections. The agitation over the SPLG, according to the PPP, is being financed from Lahore and had its links to the PML-N’s bigger agenda of developing a political alliance with the nationalist parties. This flatters Nawaz Sharif beyond perhaps what he deserves. A few visits of Nawaz to Sindh, where he obviously had to meet whom other than the nationalists, should not be raised to such a pitch. The ground reality is that the PPP did not act wisely on the SPLG. The fact is that the PPP ignored democratic norms and in fact turned the tables on its other allies by not taking them into confidence while getting the SPLG endorsed by the Sindh Assembly. Now the PPP has to apply balm on the wounds of those it has alienated and annoyed. The PPP and Sindh would be best served even at this stage by inviting estranged allies and the nationalists for a dialogue on the SPLG. *