LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party has criticised the Parvez Elahi’s Punjab government for allocating millions of rupees for purchase of new vehicles for members of cabinet at a time when people of the province are drowning in floods.

PPP Punjab Secretary general Hassan Murtaza said here on Sunday the people were drowning in floods in south Punjab, while the provincial government was buying vehicles worth millions for the protocol of the cabinet members.

“I just want to ask if the protocol of the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues is more important than the rehabilitation of the flood victims.”

He regretted that the chief minister had not yet visited any flood-affected area and was instead either paying visits to Bani Gala residence of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman or arranging public meetings for Imran Khan.

The national treasury should be spent on the welfare of the people and not the luxury of the rulers, the PPP leader said, warning that the rulers’ indifference would cost them dearly in the elections.

Mr Murtaza said the chief minister should consider the public interest while making decisions as the people were crying because of inflation and the provincial government was sleeping.

Information secretary Shehzad Saeed Cheema, meanwhile, cautioned that some court decisions could lead to political instability in the country. In the absence of a uniform standard of justice, the country might face chaos, he warned.

Apparently, in a reference to the “soft treatment” given to Imran Khan by the Islamabad High Court in the case of hurling threats at a woman judge of the lower judiciary, he said “giving concessions” to one and “humiliating” the other would not resolve the matters, cautioning that verdicts given on the basis of popularity of a political figure and his ability to mobilise people would set a negative trend in the judicial history.

“Despite all the insults being hurled by the Ladla (favourite), the relief being given to him is a question mark on the justice system.”

Meanwhile, PPP Lahore chapter Information Secretary Faiza Malik told a press conference here that the party has set up flood relief camps all over the city, being joined by a large number of people.

She said while the world was calling for extending help to the flood-hit people of Pakistan, the PTI was engaged in “petty politics”, arranging one public meeting after the other and thus diverting public attention from the plight of the people displaced by the calamity. “Except in federation and Sindh, the PTI has governments all over Pakistan. But, instead of working for the people affected by the floods, it is collecting donations for the by-polls in nine constituencies,” Ms Malik regretted.

She demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should order audit of the Rs5 billion funds reportedly collected by Imran Khan in a telethon in the name of flood-hit people.

PML-N: The PML-N observed death anniversaries of Father of the Nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah and of Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif here on Sunday.

Quran Khwani was held at the City office of the party which was attended by MNA Kiran Dar, MPAs Kanwal Liaquat, Rabia Nusrat, Farzana Butt, and Tayyaba Zameer, Irm Chaudhry, Farzana Muneer, Nargis Mateen, Tahira Aziz, Sana Farhan, Dr Nusrat, Shehzadi Kabeer and others.

Paying homage to the efforts of the founder of Pakistan, various speakers said that the people were breathing as independent citizens of Pakistan only because of the efforts of Mr Jinnah.

They also paid tributes to the former first lady late Begum Kulsoom and said that she was a proud mother and wife. The way she stood up against General Musharraf’s dictatorship during the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) and led the party was praiseworthy.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2022