LAHORE: Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mahmoodur Rashid has challenged the authenticity of a survey report for the political popularity recently released by a non-government organisation.

The report had been released by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) on the basis of an opinion poll conducted between July 16 and Aug 6, which declared the performance of the Punjab chief minister as the best among the four CMs.

Know more: Punjab leads other provinces in terms of good governance

“The report is a failed effort to save the skin of Shahbaz, the man facing criminal and murder cases,” said Rashid here on Wednesday.

He said Shahbaz was being named in the Model Town incident during the period the survey was conducted and hatred against the Punjab government was at its peak. How any person could talk in favour of such a person and appreciate his governance during those days, he questioned?

The PTI leader quoted reports about various provincial departments, including education, health and home, indicating poor performance of the government in all these sectors.

He claimed that in August this year a secret report presented to the chief minister revealed that the crime rate had risen over 110 per cent while 91,000 cases were never registered, corruption and torture was rampant in police stations, and fake encounters were at their peak.

Mr Rashid claimed the report was on record and could be seen by anyone.

He said the Punjab government had failed to hold local body elections in the last six years, depriving the people of their basic constitutional right to franchise.

He alleged that Punjab presented the worst example of state-sponsored terrorism as false cases were being registered against political rivals.

The PTI leader said the Punjab government violated Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution by placing containers and arresting innocent citizens.

He claimed that Rs80 billion were lost in the Ramazan package as Rs30 million were being paid daily as interest on the loans taken by the Punjab government in the name of the food department.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2014