Wheat growers were running from pillar to post to sell their produce but were failing to get gunny bags and the official support price, lamented Pervaiz Elahi (1st left), PML-Q`s provincial president. - APP photo

LAHORE Associating itself with the rural population by criticising the `flawed` ongoing wheat procurement drive in Punjab, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q alleges that farmers are being victimised only because they voted for the party in the 2008 polls.

`The farmers are being made to suffer because they voted for us while the PML-N has secured support from urban centres of the province, party`s provincial president Pervaiz Elahi told a press conference here on Sunday.

He lamented that wheat growers were running from pillar to post to sell their produce but were failing to get gunny bags and the official support price.

He said farmers would soon take to the street against the `good governance` of the Punjab government. If continued, the policies would force the wheat growers not to sow the crop next year, he added.

Elahi alleged that the Punjab rulers earlier caused an artificial shortage of fertilisers through their MPs and workers at the time of wheat sowing and now the growers were being exploited to sell their produce at lower than the fixed rate.

He claimed that the PML-Q government did not inflict any harm on growers during its five-year tenure (2002-2007) and procured every farm produce at its respective support price, while no fertiliser shortage was allowed to be created ever.

Chiding the provincial government for claiming to procure six instead of four million ton wheat, he said no arrangements had been made for its proper storage and the produce was likely to go waste lying in the open.

Referring to the Rs2 roti issue, he said no deserving person was given Zakat during the last 13 months and the people were now asking if they were being provided with sasti roti through Zakat funds.

Warning of a looming wheat crisis in coming days, he asked the government to pay attention to the issue as the PML-Q too would monitor wheat procurement centres in the province.