PTI’s rule termed continuation of status quo

MULTAN: The People's Lawyers Forum (PLF) has termed the rule of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf continuation of status quo as the austerity measures of the government has badly been exposed by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s using the chopper for commuting between Bani Gala and the PM Secretariat. The PLF has warned the government against increasing the utility prices in future. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, PLF south Punjab president Sheikh Ghiasul Haq said the PTI government had planned to increase gas prices by 80 percent to meet the deficit in the coming days.

Similarly, the PTI government has planned to increase petroleum prices for more than Rs3 per litre. Any increase in prices would directly hit the common person. Pakistan People's Party and the PLF will jointly protest against this possible POL price hike, he announced.

He said the national exchequer was being spent on luxurious chopper flights and each trip from Prime Minister House to Bani Gala costs Rs3,70,000. He alleged Prime Minister Imran Khan had brought change in his lifestyle instead of the country.

Haq said the PTI ministers and the Punjab chief minister were enjoying extraordinary protocol. He said neither gas nor petroleum prices had been slashed. He said the party was playing politics in the name of creating the Seraiki province. The PTI had declared creation of province in the first 100 days of taking over the government offices. “Now the PTI has taken a U-turn, claiming the party has lacked one-third majority in the assemblies. The PTI is considering setting up an administrative secretariat instead of creating a separate province and this arrangement would never be acceptable,” he added.

The PPP government had constituted the Province Commission in 2012, headed by Senator Farhatullah Babar. The commission had recommended the new province name as “Bahawalpur Janoobi Punjab” with 11 districts of Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan divisions and Mianwali and Bhakkar districts to be included in the new province.

The Saraiki region witnessed poor development in the past decades, which increased backwardness in the region. The Multan district stands at number four and Rahimyar Khan at number six in terms of development in 1970. However, the poor development indicators show sluggish trends as Multan stands at 13 and Rahimyar Khan at 16 in 2011 after 41 years of developmental history, he said.

The PLF leader said that the PPP was the only party which was committed to the creating a separate province and would soon launch a campaign in this regard.