LAHORE: As the PML-N has demanded resignation of the Punjab food minister over the flour crisis through a resolution in the Punjab Assembly, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif asked the PTI government to tell the nation where exactly did the wheat stock disappear.

“The PTI government’s incompetence has triggered wheat crisis in the country. The flour crisis and massive price hike are yet another reminder of sheer callousness that is hallmark of the PTI government. People’s lives are being made miserable by the day with government’s indifferent attitude,” Shahbaz Sharif said in a tweet here on Saturday.

Condemning the surge in wheat prices and the situation created by the PTI government, he demanded strict action against those responsible. He asked the PTI and its leaders to tell the people the real reasons for this crisis.

“The nation deserves to know where exactly did the wheat stock disappear. Who is benefiting from this crisis. Was the stock smuggled, where exactly did it go and who is responsible for this massive incompetence which has impacted the entire country,” the PML-N president said.

Shahbaz takes dig at PTI govt through twitter

Mr Sharif reminded that during his party’s tenure, Pakistan witnessed record wheat crop to the point where the country was exporting it after fulfilling the national demand. But the incompetence of this government had created a wheat crisis and the “so-called Prime Minister Imran Khan” and his team were to be seen nowhere, he added.

He said the people of Pakistan were being crushed under the load of taxes, deprived of every penny in their pockets by this inept government and they were struggling to survive.

Shahbaz further said the country had been raising an alarm over the wheat crisis yet the premier was indifferent to the plight of the nation. “May be Mr Khan has not switched on the television yet because that’s where he gets all his information,” he taunted.PML-N lawmaker Sumera Komal filed the resolution in the Punjab Assembly demanding resignation of Punjab Food Minister Samiullah Chaudhry for his failure to control the flour crisis. The resolution said it was a planned conspiracy to create the flour crisis in Punjab.

“To oblige a certain mafia this crisis has been made,” the resolution said.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2020