MQM-P to take up PML-N reservations with PTI over mini-budget

KARACHI: Leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s crucial ally in the Centre, said on Wednesday that it will raise the reservations expressed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s delegation over some 'anti-people' clauses of recently tabled finance supplementary bill, generally known as the mini-budget.

A PMLN delegation, led by the party's central secretary general Ahsan Iqbal, on Wednesday met the MQMP leaders, including Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, to discuss a range of issues, including the mini-budget, rise in inflation and other matters.

Talking to the media after the meeting in Bahadurabad, Siddiqui said that the MQMP has already planned to discuss with the government some clauses in the bill that are directly affecting and putting burden on the common people. “After the meeting with the PMLN delegation, we will also include their recommendations in it,” he said. The MQMP leader said the government and the opposition should sit together and make a joint decision on issues such as budget that impacts the lives of people. “It is a common trend that every government passes on the economic burden to their successors instead of resolving the problems and because of it, financial space is shrinking in the country,” Siddiqui said.

Iqbal, a former federal minister, said that the government has imposed a burden of over Rs350 billion on the people through the finance supplementary bill. “The PMLN feels that in the present circumstances, it is not appropriate to impose such a a burden.” He said that meetings with the MQMP leaders are part of the PMLN efforts to arrive at a consensus on the mini-budget through meeting political parties of the opposition and treasury benches.