HYDERABAD(National Times)- Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has reiterated its stance that new administrative units will become the ‘destiny of Pakistan’, where such restructuring has now been inevitable to make external successes, achieved last year, sustainable.
Speaking at a Defence Day programme organised by the party’s local chapter at Koh-i-Noor Chowk on Sunday evening, MQM-P Chairman Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Mustafa Kamal, Dr Farooq Sattar and other senior leaders explained their party’s position on the issue.
Anis Kaimkhani was also present.
Dr Siddiqui said that it’s Pakistan that cannot be divided, the rest is just administrative units or provinces.
According to him, the procedure for changes in the boundaries of provinces is not only mentioned in the Constitution, but it is also ‘demanded’ by the Constitution.
He said that today’s Bangladesh had 20-25m population in 1947 and had the resources. Its rulers created districts as per people’s wish with increase in population. Therefore, with the same rationale provinces’ number should be increased depending on population.
He said that divisions and districts could be created and so could provinces.
He said that the MQM-P was not demanding a province for itself, but for Pakistan as administrative units considering the population numbers and the ones based on lingual grounds so that they could represent Pakistan for which a struggle had been launched. “When provinces will be created in the country, they will be created in our area as well,” he added.
“The Muttahida had committed the sin of [favouring] the 18th Constitutional Amendment only to show the path of transfer of democratic benefits at grass root level in the country. Had the party not been part of it, the PPP and PML-N would still get it passed,” he argued.
He said that this amendment had led to ‘accumulation of powers’ instead of ‘devolution of powers’, and the powers had been stuck with jageerdars, who needed to be expelled from all those spaces from where they had kept common man away from real freedom.
Dr Siddiqui said that Pakistan has been blessed with leadership of this region ever-since its external successes last year.
“Pakistan runs like blood in our veins. We don’t need any certificate of patriotism and none had the capacity to demand such a certificate from us,” he said.
MQM-P Senior Vice Chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal said: “The Mecca Agreement has been inked after Pakistan defused regional tensions as a successful mediator that could have potentially caused World War-III”. He said that Pakistan is taking the lead in the region despite Indian attempts to defame it.
While Pakistan had made solid gains externally and made its defence impregnable, its internal weaknesses remained a different story. “Children die in gutters or lack of anti-rabies vaccine (ARV); and people suffer from HIV here,” he remarked. He stated that provinces were given Rs8,884bn by the federation this year alone for expenditures, still a large population had been disenfranchised and people were taking up arms. He said that army could not deliver the ARV.
Mr Kamal said all these issues were directly relatable to bad governance which had become an embarrassment. But, he said, now the formula for saving Pakistan and saving the state had been aligned. He said it was time to unite and capitalise on this opportunity.
Dr Farooq Sattar said that it’s time to talk about the agenda of reforms after last year’s Marka-i-Haq. He stressed that there was a need to lessen distance between masses and government, and decision making needed to be transferred to people.
