Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Tuesday, October 27, that the Sindh Assembly had already settled the question of new administrative units in the province and that the debate should now be put to rest.
Speaking to reporters in Karachi after inaugurating the expansion of the Dr Kaikhusrow Nanabhoy Spencer's Eye Hospital in Lyari, founded in 1938, Bilawal restated his party's opposition to dividing Sindh. The party and the provincial assembly had made their position clear many times, he said, adding that only the people of Sindh could decide the province's future and no one else had the right to decide the fate of its cities.
Asked whether the federal government or its coalition partners had discussed changing the 18th Amendment through a proposed 28th Constitutional Amendment, he said they had not. He also accused some politicians of spreading division and hatred instead of solving people's problems.
Calling Karachi Pakistan's economic hub, Bilawal said the city's services could only improve if federal, provincial and local authorities worked together, and accused the federal government of denying Karachi its rightful share. He also voiced concern over the electricity crisis, saying the eye hospital had been moved to solar power and that he wanted similar arrangements across Lyari to give residents affordable electricity.
His remarks come as MQM-Pakistan presses for new administrative units to address the problems of urban Sindh.