LAHORE: PML-N President and opposition leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to step down instead of burdening the people with a mini-budget.

“Imran Niazi must resign instead of burdening the masses with a mini-budget and the government’s coalition partners must stand up against this step for national interest,” Shehbaz said in a statement here on Monday.

He said the joint opposition would resist this mini-budget with all its strength. “This will be a pact of slavery of Pakistani people and spell doomsday for them with inflation. Price of petrol and electricity will skyrocket further and make survival impossible,” he lambasted the PTI government.

The opposition leader further said he had been proven right about the government’s nation-crushing mini-budgets while PTI’s lies had been exposed yet again.

“The PTI government has lied to the people and parliament, and exhibited criminal negligence in safeguarding national interest and national security. Mini-budget on IMF’s direction sounds alarm bells for national security,” he said and added this mini-budget and legislation regarding GST would make Pakistan’s State Bank a slave of the IMF.

“There is a serious danger to Pakistan’s defense capabilities and government being paralyzed as a consequence of these conditions of the IMF”, he said.

Shehbaz Sharif said increase in taxes would shutter more businesses, further shrink the economy and cause more unemployment. The budget presented by PTI was a fraud on the nation and this government had unleashed another hell of inflation on the people of Pakistan, he lamented.

Meanwhile, opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz said the Niazi government had increased gas tariff by 350 per cent and planned to go for further (increase).

In a statement here, Hamza said the whole country had been facing a gas crisis and the people were forced to use wood. Besides, the price of LPG had also shot up to Rs220 per kg, he said and added the government had committed crime for not acquiring LPG timely.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2021