LAHORE, June 25: NWFP Jamaat-i-Islami Secretary-General Mushtaq Ahmed Khan has said the ruling Pakistan Muslim League parliamentarians had brought a bad name to politics.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Khan alleged the ruling PML had promoted the culture of shifting of loyalties in politics by indulging in horse trading and using pressure tactics. He said the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal had punished its MPAs for selling their votes in the Senate elections by expelling them from the parties, and getting them unseated, but no action had been taken against those who had purchased the votes because they belonged to the ruling party.

Answering a question about the Hasba Bill, he said it had been unanimously adopted by the NWFP assembly, but the federal government moved the court against it. He said the bill would be moved in the assembly again in an amended form. He said the federal government had never challenged the decision of any other provincial legislture as it had done in case of the NWFP assembly.

He said the NWFP government had presented the fourth tax-free budget despite financial constraints due to stoppage of royalty by the federal government. The NWFP had not only made education up to secondary school level free but was also providing textbooks to the students. It had also decided to abolish the self-finance scheme in the colleges so that the students could be admitted only on merit basis, he said.

He said the NWFP government had decided to post two MA and MSc teachers at private schools at its expense and pay a stipend of Rs1,000 per month to the unemployed postgraduates and female teachers posted in far-flung areas. Arabic teachers had been given grade 15 instead of Grade 9, and Islamiat teachers grade 14 instead of grade 7.

He said the NWFP government had allocated Rs6.672 billion for health this year and was introducing the facility of free meals for patients in the hospitals. Family quarters would be built in jails where the prisoners undergoing long terms of sentence would be allowed to spend three days with their families after every four months.