LAHORE: Raising the demand for creation of southern Punjab province, a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) MPA, Mohsin Leghari, submitted a resolution during the Punjab Assembly’s maiden oath-taking session on Wednesday.

The resolution reads: “The house strongly recommends to the federal government to initiate the process for the creation of southern Punjab immediately.”

Mr Leghari, who belongs to southern Punjab and returned to the Punjab Assembly from PP-293 (Rajanpur), has reminded the PTI of its commitment to create the new province even before the formation of the party’s government in Punjab. Though there have been several moves in the past to create the new province, the PML-N’s Shahbaz Sharif-led government had kept the issue in limbo. The Sharif government had once initiated a process of creating a southern Punjab civil secretariat in Multan to facilitate people but the plan could never see the light of day.

Mohsin Leghari reminds party’s leadership of its pre-election commitment

During its rule in the centre in 2012, the PPP-led government had got a resolution passed from the National Assembly for the creation of the new province. To counter the move, the PML-N’s government in Punjab passed a resolution for the creation of rather two provinces — Bahawalpur and Multan — and thus created a controversy.

In April this year, some disgruntled PML-N MNAs and MPAs formed Junoobi Punjab Sooba Mahaz (JPSM) on the sole agenda of creation of a new province under the leadership of Khusro Bakhtiar. The JPSM members were of the view that creation of southern Punjab province was required for strengthening the federation.

In a bid to woo political stalwarts from southern Punjab, the PTI had endorsed the demand for the creation of southern Punjab province “on administrative grounds”.

PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi had held a marathon meeting with the JPSM leaders and later told a presser that his party was endorsing the demand for the creation of southern Punjab province “not for linguistic reasons but on administrative grounds to mitigate the miseries and sense of deprivation being faced by some 35 million people living in Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions”.

Mr Qureshi had also stated: “The PTI and the JPSM had discussed the proposed province’s economic viability and geographic compactness and found the plan workable”.

On April 16, MPAs Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht and Sardar Nasrullah Dareshak had jointly submitted a resolution at the Punjab Assembly secretariat urging all parties to support the carving out of a new province in the southern part of Punjab.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2018