LAHORE: The Punjab government is reportedly going to focus now on the development of rural areas after ‘realising’ that its earlier concentration on urban centres could not prevent the youth from supporting the PTI.

“This is a paradigm shift. The government is likely to focus on urban areas where it still has support,” an official source said on Friday.

The government had so far been concentrating on development in the major cities like Lahore and Rawalpindi but despite that it could not stop people, especially the young ones, from supporting the PTI, said a number of officials close to decision making in the province.

They said that so far, only the Punjab assembly members from Lahore and some other major cities were enjoying audience with the chief minister. Of late, the entire administration was asked to fully accommodate all MPAs and MNAs. Many of them were allowed to show their pompous presence in their local areas, enjoy perks and muster the support of people.

They said the government circles minutely observed that a majority supporters of Imran Khan were educated youth who were dissatisfied with unemployment, lawlessness, injustice and inflation, and for whom development projects promised nothing.

PML-N thinks urban youth turning to PTI

These were the young people who mainly attended Imran Khan’s sit-in in Islamabad and public meetings in major cities in the province, and were also likely to support him during his second phase of agitation starting from Rahim Yar Khan on Sunday (tomorrow).

Such young people were jobless, teens or in their early 20s, poor, and saw no future in what they considered a stagnant system.

The recent surveys conducted by some renowned organizations also indicated that the educated urban youth did support the PTI in the last general elections.

Sources said keeping in view this the government circles thought it fit to strengthen the party in rural areas where dynamics of economy were different from the urban centres. There was less unemployment and there existed better earning substitutes.

People in the rural centers were still dependent on the official power houses. They were dependent on police, and different other government departments like irrigation, agriculture, food for their livelihood and their local leaders who normally return to assemblies.

Sources said that the government considered that its relief and rescue operations during the recent torrential rains and floods, and the relief package for the affectees had earned it the much-needed support in the rural areas.

The final analysis was that the urban population remained independent in making political choices despite the PML-N efforts to win them over with its various development programmes, including the laptop and yellow cab schemes.

Published in Dawn, November 8th , 2014