The federation has no right to decide the boundaries and division of a province, said Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator.
He was addressing a press conference on Saturday at Khosa House in Dera Ghazi Khan.
“There will be new provinces in the Punjab but not the way the Pakistan Peoples Party wants,” he said. New provinces, said Khosa, could not be created based on arbitrary decisions taken at the spur of moment. Such decisions always leave people with grievances, he said.
The way PPP is handling the matter, Khosa said, more people will demand new provinces for flimsy reasons.
He said that the federation had shown “hypocrisy” on the issue of creation of new provinces, adding that it had not taken into consideration the suggestions and recommendations put forth by the Punjab government.
The Punjab Assembly passed a unanimous resolution 13 months ago, he said, which envisaged the creation of two new provinces in the Punjab.
The resolution was sent to the National Assembly but was not discussed even once, Khosa added.
He rejected statements by some PPP leaders who said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was creating hurdles in the creation of new provinces, adding that it was indeed PPP’s allies who were not letting new provinces to be created.
He criticised the PPP for “playing the politics of revenge by separating my son from me”.
“This is the real face of their ‘politics of reconciliation’,” added Khosa.
He then reproached his son for violating Baloch tradition of tribal piety.
“I feel pity for my son,” he said, “who joined a party only for a ticket…a party which has been condemned as most corrupt.”
Talking about development projects in Dera Ghazi Khan district, he said that the Punjab government had so far provided Rs11.7 billion.
Khosa was accompanied by other PML-N parliamentarians from Dera Ghazi Khan division, including Dost Khosa, Hasaamuddin Khosa and Mir Badshah Qasierani.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2013.