OKARA: PPP central leaders on Sunday assured the tenants of Okara Military Farms and other state-owned farmland in the district, that party will raise their voice in the parliament.

The assurance was extended by former MNAs Chaudhry Manzoor, Nadeem Afzal Chan and Rana Farooq Saeed Khan during a visit to village 4/4L where hundreds of male and female tenants had gathered.

The leaders supported the tenants ownership claim on the land their ancestors had been tilling for a century.

They said the present rulers, when they were in opposition, had been fully supporting the tenants claim, accusing them of lacking sympathy to the poor classes, including farmers and labourers, adding the “killer” budget presented by the PML-N was a proof of this.

The speakers also assured the party support for the tenant’s struggle for the release of Anjuman-i-Mazareen Punjab secretary general Mehr Abdus Sattar and dozens others.

They also pledged to raise tenant’s voice in the provincial and national assemblies, besides the Senate.

The leaders then called on ex-MNA Sajjadul Hassan Chaudhry, who was also the party’s former district president, at his residence, where former prime minister Raja Parvez Ashraf and former federal minister Manzoor Wattoo had already arrived.

Later, at a press conference, Mr Ashraf said the PPP always faced accountability but the PML-N leaders were spared.

The ex-premier and other leaders also addressed a public meeting outside their host’s residence.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2016