** Durrani asks Gilani not to make a mockery of issue, asks him to come up with a clear vision on Saraiki province
Staff Report*
LAHORE: Bahawalpur Muttahida Mahaz chief, Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani, on Monday came down hard on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for “making mockery of the issue of Saraiki province”.
Addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club, Senator Durrani said that rather than coming up with a specific announcement on the public demand for new provinces, the prime minister had made another promise to already deprived people of the most neglected areas of the Punjab.
Durrani said, “Gilani should come up with a clear vision on Saraiki province within next 48 hours and he should also announce the territorial boundaries of the Saraiki province. If he tried to compromise the longstanding demand of revival of Bahawalpur province with Saraiki province, he should be ready to face the public wrath. We will tag him as ‘Yahya Khan Junior’ if he tried to confuse both the legitimate demands”. “In such a case, the people of Bahawalpur province would take out a million march from Sadiq Garh Palace headed by Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi and this people’s rebellion would wipe away all conspiracies against the revival of Bahawalpur province,” he added.
Durrani also criticised Gilani’s announcement to make the new provinces a part of next election manifesto of the ruling party, saying that he wanted to win the next elections by making another false promise to the deprived people of south Punjab as the government had done disservice to the country and its people.
Senator Durrani also asked the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to take immediate notice of the matter as the people of Bahawalpur expect that the executive head of the province would provide justice to them through suspension and cancellation of such auction in the already underdeveloped area. He asked the Punjab government to cancel the ‘loot sale’ of Bahawalpur state lands.
Can anyone tell me the number of administrative units we have before One Unit, if i am not wrong it was something like this
Sindh
Bahawalpur
Punjab
Balochistan ( Qalat, Sibby and one more area from todays central balochistan)
Pashtun-Balochistan
Gawadar/Makran
FATA
Azad Jamu and Kashmir
Northern States
NWFP
i am sure about above, but i would like to be corrected on it… it was said that Quetta, Chaman and areas bordering then NWFP was pashtun belt and was not part of Balochistan, the real balochistan consisted of State of Qalat, Sibby and one more area i forgot name…
Same with Punjab, as Bahawalpur was different province or administrative unit…
we Pakistan are already stuck in distinguishing ourselves as punjabi , sindhi , balochi & pathan and by adding more provinces we would just add more to our already very serious millions of problems. Uncountable people have been killed due to their ethnic background , why do these people want to make things more complex and problematic ? I’d say there should be no province just Pakistan (which is impossible I know)
I think Pakistan should be divided in 10 administrative units, where these units should have there on legislative assemblies elected on 5 years basis, while governor being appointed by the federal govt.
The basis of division should be the facility of the masses to reach govt offices/district court…
You have to divide any state into administrative units, for development and administrative purposes, the problem in Pakistan is that since independence the incompatible govt. did not developed any of the area and people felt neglected…
If we divide Pakistan into 10/12 administrative units, then it is possible to provide facilities to the people which are considered in remote areas now… people from Rajanpur ( on the border of Sindh-Punjab) do not have to travel all the way to Lahore for some lame bureaucratic reason…
New born nation was needed a strong base among other new challagnes but most of leaders neglect almost every important matter just for their interests and saving chair to hold on MAZEED power just for their sake. our constituation just raped by all ex politicians for their own cause. and the result we have now is not like a one nation, and sad thing that we still making or thinking of divisons for nasli thoughts, any way whatever everyone call it make more divisions are sound better.
I don’t know if there was a pashtun balochistan per se, but yes there was there was the balochi-barohi state of kalat with a functioning assembly, and lasbela and makran were different divisions. Gawadar would probably go in makran, though back then it was part of oman.
Northern areas is a jumbled up state as well, where we had baltistan and gilgit with their separate identities. I don’t think NA is a full functional province even now.
