GUJRAT: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has launched a drive to `unite’ growers across Punjab by holding conventions and expects to convert it into a movement for farmers’ rights by March.

Saturday’s convention in Lalalmusa, the native town of former federal minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, drew senior PPP leaders, including governors of Punjab and KP Sardar Saleem Haider and Faisal Kareem Kundi, Punjab PPP secretary general Syed Hassan Murtaza, former lawmakers Syed Anayat Ali Shah, Sajjadul Hassan, Ijaz Samman and former Kharian tehsil nazim Nadeem Asghar Kaira.

Governor Kundi suggested a joint convention of farmers of both KP and Punjab in Peshawar since farmers of his province also faced multiple issues.

He said the PTI government in KP had ruined peace in the province through its lethargic and non-serious attitude whereas the PPP government had brought peace to the province in 2008-13 and the PTI was handed over a peaceful KP in 2013-18.

Expects farmers’ rights movement by March

He was critical of media for highlighting street crimes in Karachi but looked the other way in case of KP where that law and order situation was alarming.

He said the KP was being governed by two CMs --Gandapur and defecto CM Bushra Bibi. He said the wife of PTI founder Imran Khan was calling the shots (in KP) as she did in Punjab during the rule of Usman Buzdar.

He lamented that the water accord of 1991 between the federating units of Pakistan, could not be implemented in KP whereas the provinces of Sindh and Punjab had developed irrigation systems and Balochistan was also working on it as per the water accord.

He called upon the Punjab government to refrain from using rich agricultural land for the establishment of phase 2 of industrial area in Gujrat city and advised it to utilise barren land for the sake of developing such industrial areas as well as the housing societies that had consistently been consuming farmland.

He said that the PPP had always protected the rights of farmers and vowed to work for the revival of PPP in Punjab to make party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari the next prime minister of Pakistan after winning the general elections.

Qamar Zaman Kaira said the PPP had been a voice of farmers since its foundation as even Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, the father of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, had started the struggle for the rights of growers. He said farmers alone could improve the economic condition in a year.

Ex-MPA Ijaz Samman said it was the second convention of farmers in Punjab after the Sargodha event.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2024