SUKKUR: Veteran Pakistan Peoples Party leader Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has said that his party believes the general elections scheduled for Feb 8 will be held in a fair and transparent manner, and branded those who object to newly-delimited constituencies, as weak and cowardly.

Mr Shah told journalists after speaking at a gathering titled ‘The Empowered Women Benazir Bhutto Convention’ here on Tuesday that there was no pretext for postponing the polls.

He warned that it would be tantamount to violation of law and Constitution if the general elections were put off at this stage. “We want to tell those who have raised objections to constituencies that we have given two seats of upper Sindh to Karachi because Karachi is also ours,” he said.

He said that those who wanted to move court over constituencies should be free to do so but it could not be used as a pretext to postpone the general election.

Says those who are opposing recent delimitations are weak and cowardly

Shah recalled that several alliances were formed against PPP in the past as well only to taste defeat in elections.

About PML-N getting closer to Grand Democratic Alliance, he said that it would make no difference for PPP as the PML-N had no other recourse but to join the GDA.

Women empowerment

He said earlier during his address at the convention that the vision of women living in villages was much wider and deeper than the urban women. “A mother’s lap is the best school for a child hence one needs to provide good education and training to mothers to empower them,” he said.

Mr Shah pointed out that his PPP government had made 1.5 million women members of the Sindh Rural Support Organisation and lent interest-free loans to 400,000 women so that they could stand on their own feet.

He said that the free land, which was distributed for the promotion of agriculture, was also registered in the name of women so that they should not be dependent on any man. The country’s economy could not strengthen unless women were empowered, he added.

He said: “We all talk about improvement of economy but we neither educate today’s women nor empower them”. Women should be educated and empowered in the light of vision of Benazir Bhutto, he said.

He said that women made up more than 50 per cent of the country’s population but only two per cent of them were educated and empowered. The participants in the convention should play their role to empower the rest of 48 per cent women in the country, he said.

He said that his party’s government made serious efforts to provide quality education to women in medical and engineering colleges and they were now becoming doctors and engineers, which was an encouraging sign, but regretfully the society was forcing them to revert to their traditional role and they often quit their jobs or went abroad after getting married.

He advised women to value themselves as a person, become empowered and contribute to the development and prosperity of the country.

He lauded Ghazala Anjum Kashif and her team for organising a successful convention and hoped they would hold a similar convention on national level as well.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2023