HYDERABAD - Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Moula Bux Chandio has stated that the government of Pakistan Peoples Party will bury the issue of Kalabagh dam once and forever.
Addressing a press conference at the Circuit House on Sunday, the minister said the time for raking up the buried issue of Kalabagh dam was highly inappropriate as it had the potential to cause disharmony in the general elections.
He said it was under the purview of the democraticalyl elected government to make decisions on the economic and energy issues rather than a court. According to him, no political party in the country had welcomed the order even the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had said the judiciary should not venture in those issues. “This is a project which has been rejected by the assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan. Even the people of these provinces have expressed their popular disapproval of it,” observed Chandio.
The minister denied that the PPP government was involved in any way in the LHC’s judgment saying that only the parties opponents were levelling such baseless accusations.
He criticized the Punjab Chief Minsiter Shahbaz Sharif for supporting the dam project without considering the fact that it poses a risk for inter-provincial harmony.
When asked why the secretaries of Council of Common Interest and Water and Power Ministry presented the fudged facts before the LHC which based its order on these facts, the minister expressed a lack of knowledge as to what transpired in the court.“I don’t know the technicalities of the matter which were put forward in the court,” he added.
Replying to a question as to what course among the CCI, review plea in the Supreme Court or a resolution in the provincial assemblies will the PPP government take to bury the issue, the minister said that the most appropriate forum among them would be taken.
Talking about the Sindh Peoples Local Government Act, 2012, he said the PPP government was open to accept amendments in the new system provided that they were convinced that the changes were meant to improve the system.
In reply to a question about the PPP’s position with regard to the delimitation of the electoral constituencies in Karachi, the minsiter said that the PPP’s provincial general secretary Taj Hyder had already clarified the party’s stance on it.
The minister was accompanied by the local PPP leaders including Aftab Khanzada, Fayyaz Shah and others.