SAHIWAL/OKARA, June 2: Electri-city loadshedding caused Punjab Rs400 billion loss annually, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said at a rally against power outages at Sadar Chowk on Saturday.

Invited to the protest rally by the Sahiwal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sharif said federal government’s policies were anti-Punjab.

Instead of giving a solution to loadshedding, Sharif and his supporters focused on raising slogans against President Asif Ali Zardari. Without giving a date for the long march threatened by his party, he asked people to be ready for it.

Provincial minister Malik Nadeem Kamran also raised slogans against President Zardari. Party leaders Arshad Khan Lodhi, Khizar Hayat Khagga, Jalal Din Dhakoo, Imtiaz Butt, Sajil Ali Chohan, Pir Ihsanul Haq, Chaudhry Ashraf, Arshad Khan and Naveed Lodhi were also present.

Also, the chief minister visited Qila Sondha Singh near Hujra Shah Moqeem on Saturday on the invitation of the Gilanis.

Former district nazim Syed Asad Ali Gilani, MPA Raza Ali Gilani and former MNA Rao Ajmal Khan received the chief minister at the FWO base camp.

Women relatives of Khalid, who was shot dead some weeks ago, staged a demonstration near the base camp. The chief minister heard them and directed Okara DPO Dr Raja Abid Khan to reach Raiwind with the case record and the protesting women.

Talking to newsmen at his tent office at Minar-i-Pakistan in Lahore, Shahbaz Sharif said people were now seeking electricity instead of democracy because of plunder of the national wealth by the rulers in Islamabad.

He said people were facing loadshedding whereas the rulers were setting records of alleged corruption and plunder.

He said kickbacks were taken in rental power projects, pilgrims were looted, robberies of billions of rupees were committed in the institutions like Bank of Punjab and NICL, and it was for this reason that the masses wanted electricity instead of democracy now.

He said power outages added to the misery of the masses already burdened with inflation. He claimed that discriminatory attitude had been being meted out to Punjab with regard to distribution of power and gas.

He said protest against loadshedding was right of the people and he was standing with the masses on this issue.

He said industrialists, labourers, landlords and farmers were upset but the rulers instead of resolving their problems were adding to their miseries.