BAHAWALPUR: Former prime minister and PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Husain has called upon workers to prepare themselves for local council elections.

He said this at a public rally here at Dring Stadium on Saturday. He said the local government elections were in sight and workers should be ready to effectively participate in it.

He criticised the PML-N government, which, he alleged, was the product of rigged elections. He said with sham elections, a government could be formed which would never serve the masses.

Referring to the demand of local people the restoration of Bahawalpur province, he said the rulers had no excuse to delay the restoration as now they ruled both the Centre and Punjab. In their previous tenure, Mr Husain said, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his elder brother, Nawaz, took the plea the Punjab Assembly had passed the resolution regarding the restoration of Bahawalpur province but the federal government, led by the PPP, was hurdle in it.

Now, he said, the hurdle had been removed and the government should restore the Bahawalpur province.

Former deputy prime minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi challenged the younger Sharif to beat his performance when he was chief minister from 2002 to 2007.

He stressed the need for construct Kalabagh dam, which, he said, could help end loadshedding and provide cheaper electricity to people. He said the Sharif brothers visited China for their personal business. He said robberies and thefts were now the order of day in the province while education had become a costly affair as patients faced shortage of medicines in hospitals.

He said as a chief minister he had approved the Institute of Nuclear Medicines in Bahawalpur costing about Rs2.5 billion but Mr Sharif shifted it to Lahore. He said Mr Sharif

did not provide funds for the completion of kidney and cardiac wards in Bahawal Victoria Hospital. He said PML’s membership would be launched from Bahawalpur. MNA Tariq Cheema also spoke.

MEETING: A three-day committee meeting of the SAMUN (Sadiq Public School Model United Nations) continued for the second day on Saturday.

Speeches of delegates and the address of Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal were included in the second day’s proceedings.

Earlier, the inaugural session opened at the school’s Information Technology Centre.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2014