ANP demands fresh, fair election

PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) on Monday said that an in-house change was not the solution to the problems, demanding a free and fair election without any interference.

Talking to reporters after a meeting of the party’s central office-bearers at Bacha Khan Markaz here, ANP central vice-president Ameer Haider Hoti asked the opposition parties to set aside their differences in an effort to address the problems facing the country.

He said the ANP was part of the opposition and would make efforts to unite the opposition on a single agenda. The ANP leader said the government could not hide behind the coronavirus pandemic as the economy was in shambles even before the pandemic.

The former chief minister said the government statistics showed that the economy had shrunk before March, increasing poverty and joblessness.

He added that the official figures for gross domestic product (GDP) showed no area of the economy was left unscathed due to poor governance. Haider Hoti said the Federal Bureau of Revenue faced a shortfall of Rs900 billion, non-tax revenue Rs102 billion while the revenue target for the fiscal year had been set at Rs4963 billion on the directives of International Monetary Fund.