Islamabad: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday said that establishment had never accorded good treatment to those who had worked for country’s progress including the PPP.

Addressing a rally in Kashmore, Mr Zardari said that he speaks in Urdu so those “blind, dumb, deaf sitting in Islamabad” could hear him.  The more “they hinder us the more shall we advance,” he added.

He said the 18th amendment in the constitution by PPP benefitted provinces. “We are fighting for the sake of motherland,” he said. The former president said the government’s ideology about autonomy was against provinces.

Mr Zardari warned that if the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) government attempted to withdraw provincial autonomy then it should be prepared to face a long fight. “This isn’t a small issue. It will stretch too far,” he said.

“It will engulf everything,” said the former president with a cryptic undertone while referring to the Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) report in a money laundering case, which according to Mr Zardari implicated him and his associates as a tool to put pressure on the PPP to withdraw from defending provincial autonomy.

The PPP co-Chairman recalled that the 18th constitutional amendment was passed unanimously during his government, even though the party did not enjoy the required majority in parliament. “Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were given the same autonomy which was given to Sindh,” he said.

“Your problem is that you couldn’t rig the elections in Sindh as you did elsewhere,” alleged the former president, adding his party was ready to fight for what’s right if challenged to do so.

He also said his party was not hungry for power as it had opted to sit on opposition benches in the Sindh Assembly despite winning the largest number of seats in 2002. He said the philosophy of the PPP was to defend the rights of the poor.