OKARA: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said he is surprised to see that the leaders who are addressing Jalsian — small public gatherings — are demanding his resignation. He has made it clear that he will not step down.

In an apparent reference to his arch-rival Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Imran Khan, the prime minister said such leaders could be well advised to confine themselves to playing cricket but they had even surpassed the cricket-playing age.

He was addressing a public gathering at the municipal football ground here on Saturday.

Mr Sharif said those responsible for severe loadshedding were agitating while his government was struggling to increase power generation.

“Power being produced at the plants in Bhikki, Qadirabad Haveli and Port Qasim in Karachi and the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project has been added to the national grid. Similarly Tarbela Hydropower Project’s generation capacity has been enhanced and it will ultimately add 6,600MW to the national grid,” he said and added that loadshedding in the country would come to an end next year.

Sharif lists his govt’s achievements at public gathering in Okara

The PM said soon a motorway would connect Lahore with Karachi via Multan, Sukkur and Hyderabad. He said his government had restored peace to the country’s economic hub Karachi.

In a lighter vein, Mr Sharif said he had kept on serving people while he had been playing cricket.

He said that women were participating in the public gathering with honour and dignity and compared it to the way women participants were dealt with in the public meetings of the “cricketer”.

The prime minister laid the foundation stone of a project of gas supply to NA-144 and that of the flyover at Depalpur Chowk on Grand Trunk road. The gas supply project is estimated to cost Rs450 million and the flyover Rs740m. He announced a grant of Rs300m for the uplift of the city roads and construction of new ones.

Before his arrival in Okara, the prime minister visited the farm house of Pakistan Muslim League-N MNA Sayed Ashiq Kirmani in Shergarh and inaugurated wheat crop harvesting.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2017