ISLAMABAD, July 14: Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto has said the anti-people agenda of the regime has become clear from its pursuit of pleasure over service to the nation.

Ms Bhutto stated this while commenting on data released in the Senate which, according to her, showed that the regime had been busy in building golf courses rather than paying attention to the growing poverty, suicides and worsening crime situation in the country.

She said the PPP was the defender of the rights of the farmer, labourer, trader, student, youth and professional classes. As such, she added, a plan had been made by the vested interests to keep the party out of power in order to exploit the resources of the country and satisfy the greed of an elite and privileged class.

The former prime minister noted that as per the Senate data, since the overthrow of the PPP government, the military authorities had converted hundreds of acres of military farm lands into golf courses for pleasure and entertainment of senior military officials.

These golf courses are in addition to those made on the railway lands, especially in Lahore where the cost was unbelievably high, she added. Ms Bhutto said the insensitivity in the pursuit of pleasure by the ruling class, while the poor were committing suicide due to unemployment, reminded the masses of France in the dying days of its monarchy.

There too when the people had no bread to eat, the rulers asked them to eat cake. "Similarly, while the rulers ate the "cake" of golf courses and leisure, hospitals and schools remain starved for funds and teachers and doctors underpaid."

She claimed that since the overthrow of the PPP government, 307 acres of military farms lands were converted into golf courses. She said the PPP had been in the forefront of the struggle to ensure that military farm tenants were not ejected from their leaseholds to please the elite ruling class.

"While the regime has neglected low-cost housing, it has built houses for the military, including Gen Pervez Musharraf who passed a law so that he could take two houses - one as president and one as Chief of Army Staff - in abuse of state powers."

Reportedly, 222 acres of farm land were used to build such houses for favourites, she added. "For example, 36.96 acres of military dairy farm in Chaklala was converted into a housing scheme; in Lahore, 133.96 acres of land belonging to the military dairy farms were converted into housing schemes since 1999.

In Sialkot, the authorities converted 51.2 acres of military dairy farm land into a housing society." While the regime spent millions on leisure and pleasure activities, poverty increased in the country.

The finance minister admitted in the Economic Survey that 50 million people, some 32 per cent of the population, were living on just Rs848 per month or almost 814 per month.

Ms Bhutto claimed that when the PPP was in power, there was an economic boom and income was going up for a large segment of people although more was needed to be done. However, she added, after fall of the PPP, income has shrunk and people are facing wide-scale hardship.