Hyderabad:
The principal minister of Sindh, Sharjeel Inam Memon, said the PPP and his provincial government have explicitly declared that they will not allow the construction of six new channels in the Indo.
Going to a ceremony in Tando Jam on Saturday, Memon seemed in advance to the protest movements that PPP opponents are trying to shake the channel theme.
“The PPP and the Government of Sindh have said that the channels will not be built, so for what reasons the protests are being organized?” He questioned. He reiterated that the president of PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and Sindh’s Prime Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, have rejected the project.
He argued that the political opponents of his party in the province have nothing to show in terms of their performance during their periods in power.
Memon accredited the PPP for burying the Kalabagh dam project, granting the provincial autonomy, the National Commission of Finance (NFC) and even rename the province of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He blamed the opponents to try to “poison” the minds of the people of Sindh who have always supported the PPP in the elections.
“In each election, the PPP faces and defeats electoral alliances in the province. The next elections will not be different,” he added.
The PML-N directed the controversial proposal of the federal government to build six new channels on the Indo River to water Cholistan’s desert in Punjab continues in the relations between two key allies.
The PPP on January 12 lashed out at the Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal for ruling out the objections of Sindh to the channel project as “without foundation.”
The party caught attention to generalized protests in Sindh against the channels, stating that the people of the province have expressed severe reservations and resentment on the projects.
The PPP also questioned the Federal Government’s failure to convene a meeting of the Common Interests Council (CCI), the Constitutional Forum to resolve interprovincial disputes, to address water -related concerns.
Later, on February 17, a massive march directed by the Great Democratic Alliance (GDA) and the Qaumi Awami Tehreek (Qat) was organized between Sehwan in the Jamshoro district to Dadu in protest against the Federal Government’s plan for the new channels.
The march saw the participation of thousands of protesters who joined against what they called an attempt to steal Sindh of their water rights.
Addressing the participants in several cities along the route, the leaders denounced the green initiative of Pakistan, claiming that it was designed to benefit a handful of elites at the expense of millions of farmers and workers of Sindh.
