People, not arsenal, to ensure country’s survival: Sen Raisani

Pakistan People’s Party Balochistan chapter President and Senator Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani on Friday linked the survival of a country to the well-being of its people and not in building heaps of arms and ammunition. Talking to The News here, before leaving for Quetta, he said the formula of a survival and thriving of a nation was very simple, just take care of your people, their well-being and give them justice. “Today is May Day and let me say here that Pakistan, the land of opportunities, can only be saved by the labourers and workers,” the senator from Balochistan maintained. He strongly advocated a sustained dialogue backed by a series of confidence-building measures to defuse the very dangerous situation Balochistan was facing today. Referring to the disturbing reports emanating from Pakistan’s largest but the poorest province, Raisani said it was hunger, which had led to the break-up of the USSR, which possessed a huge arsenal of nuclear warheads and the largest army. “In the disintegration of the USSR, there is a lesson for all of us: Feed your people and count on them. If you are internally strong, no power on the earth can harm you,” the senator emphasised. Raisani did not resign as a senator and as the provincial chief of the PPP, following persuasion by the party’s top leadership, including President Asif Ali Zardari, who promised to give good news upon his return from the United States. Raisani, who is the younger brother of Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, agreed to continue as a member of the upper house of parliament for a month. He is not expected to attend a session during this period. Among others who met him and tried to convince him not to resign as senator included Minister for Labour and Manpower Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah, PPP Secretary General Senator Jehangir Badr and Interior Minister Rehman Malik, PPP sources said when approached for comments. They claimed that Raisani was among a very few party people who had not expressed their desire or talked to the top PPP leadership to become a senator. Raisani during his first speech in the session, after being elected as a senator in March, had raised his voice against the interior minister’s giving a clean chit to the intelligence agencies on the murder of Baloch leaders. He said President Zardari had promised him to give the nation good news with reference to Balochistan after his return from the United States. “I feel strongly for my people. When I found myself unable to play any role in mitigating their miseries, I decided to step down,” he said.