ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: The recent increase in the salaries of parliamentarians has been challenged in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court by a petitioner, who stated that the one-year performance of the lawmakers was before the nation and they did not deserve the unprecedented raise in their salaries which he described as a “political bribe.”

Manzoor Ahmad Bhatti, President of Pakistan Islami Jamhoori Party, and head of Ittehad Mazloom Awam Pakistan, in his constitutional petition before the court on Nov 25, stated that he had been seeking compensation for the destruction of his rice paddy for the last seventeen years but to no avail.

He said the heavy floods of 1986 had washed away his Kharif crop (rice paddy) and his house in tehsil Ferozwala. He said he knocked almost every door, from president of the country to the area Patwari, but without success.

He said the present legislature includes a person who on December 31, 1997, at the time of election of the then president, wrote on the ballot paper, “Pakistan Murdabad” (Down with Pakistan).

Mr Bhatti said no effort had been made to trace the “culprit” and instead they are being enriched by increasing their salaries.

The petitioner wants the citizens from the downtrodden class in parliament as representatives of farmers and peasants.

The lawmakers’ salaries have been increased to the tune of 117 per cent at a time when the people are committing suicide due to high cost of living, he said.

He added that the legislators were being rewarded for their “irresponsible behaviour.” Despite an unprecedented increase in their salaries, the quorum of the National Assembly was broken time and again.