MULTAN City News

Nawaz to lose popularity if salaries

not raised more than 20pc in budget: Gilani

From Our Correspondent

MULTAN: Former prime minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has urged the federal government to make more than 20 per cent increase in salaries of government employees otherwise Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will lose his popularity.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, he demanded the government provide relief to the common man in the budget. He also demanded relief for peasants in shape of increase in support prices and reduction in prices of outputs. Gilani said that Pakistan and the US were strategic partners and they were jointly targeting high-value targets. He said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s address to the cabinet meeting through video link was not illegal. He said that it was the first time when the parliament was facing a situation that the prime minister was sick. He said that there should not be a deadlock on the ToRs.

Meanwhile, addressing a reception organised in the honour of Pakistan People’s Party south Punjab former office-bearers, Yusuf Raza Gilani said that the PPP always fought for the cause of Seraiki region. He said that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was reorganising the party on a demand of the party workers. He said that all party units had been dissolved except the tehsil level party offices. He said that each party wing, including youths, peasants, labour, women and lawyers, would hold their respective conventions at the district level.

He said that his second generation had been associated with the PPP and he had contested his first election on a PPP ticket in 1988. Gilani said that his son was abducted in result of Swat and Malakand military operations. In the past, the political parties criticised the PPP for advocating for dialogue with Taliban, he said, adding that now these political parties also wanted dialogue with Taliban. He said that the PPP sincerely followed the Charter of Democracy. Gilani said that the PPP had implemented 85 per cent of commitments made under the CoD and rest of the 15 per cent could not be implemented mainly because of the PML-N. He underlined the need for devising the farmers-friendly policies.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP south Punjab president and former governor Makhdoom Ahmad Mehmood said that the party would organise its first workers’ convention in Rahimyar Khan today.

PPP south Punjab Coordination Committee secretary general Abdul Qadir Shaheen, south Punjab ex-president Makhdoom Shahabuddin, senior leader Malik Mukhtar Awan, south Punjab spokesperson Khawaja Rizwan Alam and others also spoke on the occasion.