Sirajul Haq slams PDM govt over rising inflation

BANNU: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq on Sunday criticized the Pakistan Democratic Movement-led federal government for failing to control inflation and provide some relief to the poor people grappling with record inflation. Addressing workers’ convention here, he said that the component parties in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had been staging protest against the former federal government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for being unable to provide relief to the people in the face of backbreaking inflation, but the incumbent rulers too had been unable to mitigate the sufferings of the have-nots since returning to power. Sirajul Haq said that inflation had reached record level, but the rulers were least bothered to consider the plight of the poor masses.

He said that the Pakistani rupee had weakened considerably against the US dollar while the foreign exchange reserves had fallen to record low. Jamaat-e-Islami provincial president Prof Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, general secretary Maulana Abdul Wasay and other party leaders also spoke on this occasion. Sirajul Haq further said that the PDM government had promised that it would reduce the duration of the electricity loadshedding, but this promise was yet to be honoured. He said that the people were braving long hours of power cuts during the hot summer days. The JI chief recalled that PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had invited him to join the PDM but he had linked his joining to implantation of a true Islamic system in the country.“The PDM has failed to deliver on pledges made with the people,” he went on to add.Turning his guns on the PTI, he said that the Imran Khan-led party ruled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for nine years, but it did not execute a single mega uplift project for the benefit of the local population.