ANP chief says PTI govt has presented worst budget

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan has criticized the government for cutting the education budget and imposing heavy tax on the salaried class.

Through a statement issued here on Wednesday, he said hiking prices of the daily necessities would affect the poor. He said the budget could not be termed poor friendly. The ANP chief said the previous government had allocated Rs23.68 billion for Diamer-Bhasha dam while the incumbent government despite raising Rs9 billion for the dam through donation had allocated Rs16 billion. He said the cut in development schemes and making life difficult for poor was a matter of concern. Asfandyar said the budget deficit had touched Rs3560 billion for the first time in the country’s history. The ANP chief said the government launched the arrest spree of the national leaders to divert attention from the budget. He urged all political parties to unite against the anti-poor activities of the government.

Asfandyar said the Malakand division and merged districts were deprived of its special packages, adding that no visible allocation had been made for the development of merged districts.

He said that terrorism affected districts deserved special packages but the government ignored them. Meanwhile, the ANP has termed the postponement of the election for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in the merged districts as pre-poll rigging. Through a statement, ANP provincial president Aimal Wali Khan said the government had admitted its defeat before the election. The Election Commission of Pakistan has postponed the election for 18 days on the request of the government. He said postponement of the election on the pretext of security reasons was pre-poll rigging, saying that how would the security situation improve in 20 days. The ANP provincial president said that first, the government imposed Section 144 to prevent candidates from electioneering. However, when the government felt that the desired results could not be achieved with such actions, it later postponed the election. He said the ANP had already forwarded its reservation to the ECP.