GUJRAT: Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman kicked off his party’s movement for the farmers’ rights with a rally in Phalia town of Mandi Bahauddin on Wednesday.

Addressing the rally, the JI emir called upon the government to announce support prices for the wheat and sugarcane crops since farmers sowed the wheat crop on a lesser area this season due to their last year’s bitter experience when the government did not purchase their yield despite a commitment made to them in this regard.

The rally was organised by JI Kissan Wing and was addressed by its central president Sardar Zafar Hussain, Punjab emir Dr Tariq Saleem, Mandi Bahauddin emir Saifullah Sahi and others.

Such rallies are also scheduled to be held in Vehari, Kasur, Bahawalpur and Jhang, said Dr Tariq Saleem.

Criticising the allotment of a huge chunk of land in Cholistan to a corporate firm, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman questioned its merit, saying the corporate farming would ruin the ordinary farmers.

He said the JI’s movement would be expanded across the country like its earlier drive against the high tariff of electricity and “unjustified” payments to the independent power producers (IPPs).

He said the country was being governed by different mafias, whereas the system had nothing to deliver to the poor masses, adding that his party had always stood for the rights of ordinary people.

Mr Rehman asked the underprivileged classes to unite against the privileged ones that had been plundering the national wealth and occupying the country’s resources.

He said the government had been falsely claiming that subsidy to farmers and agriculture sector could not be given due to the pressure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding that the lender had been repeatedly asking the Pakistani authorities to impose taxes on the ruling elite and mafias, but the rulers were unable to meet such conditions.

He said the government had been paying hundreds of billions to the IPPs, but it was not ready to provide free education to the children of poor farmers.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2024