Sindh, March 26 (IANS) Pakistan’s ruling coalition party Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has joined ongoing demonstrations and rallies across Sindh province in protest against the government’s plan to construct six new canals on the Indus River.
Addressing a rally, PPP’s Sindh President Nisar Ahmed Khuhro stated that sit-in demonstrations will be held in all talukas of the province in the next phase of their protest. Khuhro threatened to block the National Highway if the Centre does not scrap the project.
“The protest movement will continue until the federal government withdraws the plan to build Cholistan and other canals,” Khuhro was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s leading newspaper, The Express Tribune.
Amid rising internal conflicts in the coalition and contradicting stances, PPP-Sindh President also criticised the Pakistani government, labelling it as a “dictatorial federal government”.
He said that the federal government has revived the memory of dictatorship by starting the construction of the Cholistan Canal in Punjab province without the approval of any constitutional forum.
Meanwhile, thousands of people from all walks of life took part in widespread rallies held in all major and smaller towns of the Sindh province. They took to the streets of their respective areas with banners and raised slogans against the ‘anti-Sindh’ project.
The senior party leaders of PPP, including Mian Raza Rabbani, Waqar Mehdi, and Sadia Javed, also organised a huge rally outside the Karachi Press Club. Addressing the participants, they highlighted the ongoing water shortages in the coastal regions of Sindh, such as Sujawal and Badin, where sea intrusion has already consumed large swaths of farmland.
Raza Rabbani condemned the plan of new canals, calling it a “death sentence” to Sindh, and warned that these canals would obliterate millions of acres of Sindh’s fertile land. “If these canals are constructed, Sindh will turn into a desert, driving millions into starvation and displacement,” Rabbani said.
Activists, members of various political parties, civil society outfits, trade unions, and literary associations are up in arms against the government, which is constructing six canals on the Indus River. They have been continuously demanding that the federal government of Pakistan should shelve the canal project.
The protests, echoing demands to “let the water flow,” have been held across the province with the citizens describing such projects as “anti-people policies” and a “violation” of Sindh’s rights.
–IANS
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