ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) on Sunday criticised the government for failing to control inflation, saying 2005 would be the last year of General Pervez Musharraf's rule , as masses disliked a general controlling political institutions and parliament.

Speaking at a press conference at the Parliament Lodges, Khwaja Saad Rafique and Maimoona Hashmi criticized increase in the prices of petroleum products for the second consecutive time in a space of two weeks.

Mr Rafique said the prices of items of daily use had surged more than five times since the PML (Nawaz) government was overthrown by General Musharraf. The unprecedented inflation, he said, had belied Musharraf's tall claims of stabilising the economy and reducing poverty.

He said inflation had doubled within weeks forcing more and more people below the poverty line. If the economy had improved during the past five years of Musharraf's rule, then why poverty ruled supreme in the country, he asked.

About General Musharraf's decision to keep the offices of the army chief and president, Mr Rafique said the general had never told the truth or revealed the status he had in the eyes of the masses.

About General Musharraf's slogan of enlightened moderation, he asked as to how one could believe him as a moderate person when he was not willing to let Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto come back.

GRAND OPPOSITION: PML-N, he said, had outright rejected the so-called national reconciliation offer of the government. The moment Musharraf overthrew a democratically elected setup, PML-N termed him and still considered as the one who violated the constitution and disgraced democracy and democratic institutions, he said.

He said PML-N wanted a grand opposition alliance that could pressure Musharraf to step down and transfer power to the elected representatives of the masses. The struggle of the grand alliance, he said, should be named as "freedom movement" because the people had been under a military rule for more than five years and they longed for democracy that was never allowed to grow.