Bilawal says Sindh Assembly has closed new provinces debate
PPP chairman tells reporters in Karachi's Lyari that Sindh's people and their elected representatives have already given their decision on the question.
Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Tuesday that the Sindh Assembly had put a "full stop" to the debate over creating new provinces, telling reporters that the people of Sindh and their elected representatives had already given their decision.
Mr Bhutto-Zardari made the remarks to the media at Spencer Eye Hospital in Karachi's Lyari, where Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was with him, according to Dawn.
Dawn reported that the question put to him concerned the "pressure" the PPP was facing over the creation of new administrative units and the possibility of rolling back the 18th Amendment. The party chairman reiterated the PPP's position in reply, saying the people of Sindh and their elected representatives had presented their decision and that the discussion should now be brought to a full stop.
The 18th Amendment is the constitutional package under which powers were devolved from the centre to the provinces.
Other outlets carried the same remark in different words. 24 News HD headlined its report "Sindh Assembly has put a full stop to debate on new provinces: Bilawal"; Samaa said "Bilawal says Sindh's new provinces debate is closed"; and Hum News English reported that the Sindh Assembly had put a "full stop" to the new provinces debate.
The full exchange was not immediately available. Dawn's account carried only a partial quotation of the party chairman's answer, and no transcript of the media talk was released by the PPP or the Sindh chief minister's office.
Demands for new provinces carved out of existing ones have surfaced repeatedly in Pakistani politics, and the PPP has consistently opposed redrawing Sindh's boundaries. Mr Bhutto-Zardari's remarks on Tuesday were his latest attempt to shut the matter down, this time by pointing to a decision he said the provincial assembly had already taken.
He did not elaborate on when or in what form the Sindh Assembly was said to have settled the question, and no assembly resolution on the subject was cited in the reports.
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