LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has termed prime minister’s announcement of relief package for the poor a ‘lollipop’ and believed it will meet the same fate as his previous claims.

Bilawal said during his visits to union council-13 Sheva Mandli, UC-14 Ghalib Nagar and Khichi locality in his constituency on Wednesday that countrywide protests would be staged against price hike, poverty and unemployment, which had assumed such proportions that the prime minister felt compelled to address the nation.

He called Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leadership a bunch of inefficient men and liars, who had only multiplied peoples’ problems in the name of relief. Imran, who had claimed not to take “begging bowl” to anyone, was jubilant over the aid he had received from Saudi Arabia, he said.

He said that Imran Khan kept passing the back of his ‘failures’ to former governments but now people wanted his accountability and not ‘lollipops’. Thirty per cent relief on ghee, electricity, sugar and gas would prove meaningless as ghee prices had risen by 110pc, electricity tariff by 60pc, sugar by 80pc and gas rates had been increased by 300pc, respectively, within three years, he said.

Imran Khan’s relief package was only for a few families and not for people, he should be ashamed of giving such a paltry sum as help, he said, adding what a mockery with the poor that the government which showered amnesty schemes on billionaires had nothing for the welfare of the poor.

He said that Imran Khan was the only prime minister of the country who told lies and backed out on promises. The worsening situation demanded that Jiyalas’ government was formed to steer the country out of economic morass, he said.

Accompanied by PPP Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, MNA Khursheed Junejo, his secretary Jamil Soomro, provincial ministers Sardar Shah, Nasir Shah and other leaders, Bilawal visited residences of party workers Asghar Khichi, Ayaz Hussain Kanasro and others.

He exchanged views with the workers and elders of the area regarding the issues of his constituency and said it was not the fate of the poor to always remain poor. People would continue to suffer till the real representatives came to power, he said.

He said that people always participated in PPP-led protests in huge numbers for they knew PPP’s rallies were purely meant for them. Transparency international in its recent report indicated rise in corruption in PTI-led government and prior to becoming prime minister Imran Khan claimed on more than one occasions that he would uproot corruption within 90 days, he said.

He said that the prime minister who made tall claims of constructing five million houses was now out to demolish poor’s houses from Karachi to Kashmir on the pretext of removing encroachments.

Common man did not know where the funds coming from Muslim countries and IMF were being spent, he said, adding that relief was only serving to add to peoples’ problems, he said.

He asked for how long people would bear with this incompetent government. One slogan Pait pay daka na manzoor wa echoing from Gilgit to Karachi. “Where is the economic progress Imran Khan had spoken of at the floor of the National Assembly?

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2021