Speakers at the meeting of Shura Hamdard Karachi chapter urged the government to hold regular elections of local bodies on appointed hour in order to evolve new leadership in the country. The meeting was held yesterday on the theme: "The foundation of political parties should be laid on socio-economic welfare of the masses", presided over by former Justice Haziqul Khairi at a local hall. Mrs Sadia Rashid, President, Hamdard Foundation Pakistan was also present in the meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Guest and former judge of Supreme Court, former Justice Zia Pervez said most of the leaders who came in power in Pakistan, were belonged to elite class and failed to conceive the aspirations and real problems of the masses. As a result neither their political parties could provide the facilities of social welfare to the people nor give them required political training, he added. 'Allama Iqbal says: "Whichever the old impression you see, wipe off it", but we have decorated it on pulpit (minmber) instead, resulting in retrogression of the country, because we cannot make custard from wheat, he said, adding 'Hakim Said and Sattar Edhi have served Pakistan silently and we need such people to lead our society', he maintained.
Khurshid Hashmi said that we needed the visionary leaders, who could open our minds and teach us to follow the principle of Quaid-e-Azam: 'Faith, Unity and Discipline' a panacea for our emancipation.
Professor Muhammad Rafi said that only purpose of political parties was to come to power and they didn't have any interest in the welfare of people. Provinces should be given equal seats in parliament and equal treatment in order to create harmony among the provinces, he suggested.
Zafar Iqbal, President, Association of Small and Medium Size Enterprises said that the political parties should be made democratic by inside, making the election mandatory within their parties and their numbers be reduced. No head of any party should be allowed to take part in election after two terms and expenditures on election be minimised, he opined.
Haq Nawaz Akhtar, former Chairman, Pakistan Steel Mills said that the evolution of political system in Islam has been left on age, time and consensus of Ummah. The manifesto of political party was an agreement between the party and the people and it was mandatory for the party to honour this agreement and it was duty of the people to reject those political parties who were racial, linguistic and dynastic in nature, he asserted.
Commodore Sadeed Anwar Malik (Retd) was of the opinion that to bring forth the new leadership was imperative to hold local body's elections on time without fail, because new leadership always came up from local bodies. Other two things which equally important were setting up social justice and eradication of corruption from our society, he added.
Professor Dr Akhlaque Ahmed was of the view that feudal system and martial law governments were responsible to corrupt our political system because they stopped all sort of changes to come in our society. Military dictators had deprived the people of political training as they banned the political parties for a long time.-PR