LAHORE: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto is being approached with request to visit Punjab during Ramazan to meet the workers at Iftar parties, says party’s Punjab president Mian Manzoor Wattoo.

“I am going to suggest to the chairman to come to Lahore during early days of Ramazan to meet the office-bearers and workers of the party from all eight divisions of the province in a series of Iftar parties to be hosted for the purpose,” he told the media at a reception hosted by PPP information secretary Raja Amir Khan here on Sunday.

Read: Bilawal makes low-key return to Karachi

“PPP workers and leaders are very excited and anxiously waiting to welcome the chairman in Lahore,” Mr Wattoo said, adding Mr Bhutto’s arrival in Pakistan was a breath of fresh air for the “jiyalas”, a coinage for party diehards.

Responding to a query about PPP’s reconciliation policy, he said the party now considered that democracy had become strong enough and it was time for politics of agitation on masses’ issues.

“No compromise will be made now on issues of public interest and every step permissible under democratic norms will be undertaken forthwith,” he said.

To a question, he said the local government law introduced by the government was better than what was imposed by the Musharraf regime, which had abolished town and municipal committees, introducing union councils in urban areas, to the disadvantage of the urban population.

By distinguishing between the urban and rural areas, the present law provided an opportunity to both rural and urban people to get their issues resolved at their doorstep, he added.

Mr Wattoo described the budget 2015-16 as hopeless, anti-poor, anti-labour, anti-farmers and anti-government servants because “it did not include any worthwhile measures to provide relief to the poor segments of society”.

Also read: Bilawal to visit Punjab soon to organise party

He rejected the interest-free loans promised in the budget for the installation of solar tube-wells as “impracticable”, saying the poor farmers could not even contribute Rs100,000 initially to get the credit from the banks. He recalled that the PPP government had approved 50 percent subsidy on solar tube-wells, while the remaining 50 percent amount was to be arranged by the government through the Agricultural Development Bank.

He strongly supported Bhasha and Dassu dams, but regretted that the PML-N government was making meager allocations for the projects. He demanded the Rs165 billion earmarked for the Orange Line train in Lahore should be diverted to the two power projects for the sake of country’s bright future.

He recalled that the PPP government had allocated Rs40 billion for Bhasha dam and the present government marked only Rs12 billion for the purpose, which he said, reflected the degree of its commitment to the hydel projects.

The PPP leader criticised the government for allocating less than 2pc of the GDP for education when 25 million children of school-going age were out of schools.

He recalled that during his tenure as Punjab chief minister he had passed the law of Compulsory Primary Education under which not sending children to school was made a culpable offence and the headmaster was made focal person for the implementation of the law.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2015

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