SUKKUR: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Senator Sirajul Haq on Friday called for fresh general elections in the country, observing that masses should be given a chance now to choose a trust-worthy party.

Speaking at a demonstration organised by the JI outside the local press club, Senator Haq pointed out that major political parties also lacked trust in one another, adding that the JI distrust them all. They all had lost people’s trust and needed to go to the masses for a fresh mandate so as to clear the atmosphere of distrust and disappointment in the country, he said.

The demonstration was organised against unprecedented inflation and price hike that, he said, had badly affected the common man.

Both the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had been holding their respective marches but none of them were doing this to rid people of the high inflation, price hike and interest-based system, he observed.

The JI chief remarked that their aim was to do something that could place them in the good books of the US and IMF.

Condemning the increasing corruption on the part of governments and elected representatives, he remarked that a huge amount of Rs20 billion had been spent on horse trading in the small assembly of Balochistan and one wondered how much money might have been spent in such a corrupt practice in the much bigger Sindh Assembly.

He deplored that unfortunately, flags of the very corrupt parties were now seen everywhere in the country in the name of ‘marches’ although everyone knew that they always used powers for their personal gains and never bothered to serve the masses.

He advised PTI people to hold march and other protests in Islamabad against their own government if they were really worried over inflation and price hike.

He demanded a 50pc cut in the prices of petroleum products and all edibles to provide relief to the common man.

Senator Haq also condemned the bomb blast in a mosque in Peshawar on Friday that had left a large number of worshipping people martyred and wounded.

“People and their property are not safe anywhere from Karachi to Chitral,” he deplored. Police were engaged in providing security to PTI and PPP leaders in their marches and no policeman was there to take care of the general public, he observed.

“It is sad to see that the place [Sindh] where the Quaid-i-Azam was born and from where Islam was preached has been ruined by its ruling party,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2022