LAHORE: Twenty-six opposition parties observed Friday as protest day against deaths due to heatwave and power loadshedding in the country.
In the provincial capital, activists of various parties including the PTI, PPP, PML-Q, PAT, JI, SIC and the MWM, assembled outside the Lahore Press Club to vent out their anger against the government’s failure to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the people of Karachi suffering from a heatwave which resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 citizens.
Traffic remained jammed for more than an hour around Simla Pahari, particularly on Davies Road, during the protest. Carrying placards and banners inscribed with anti-government slogans like “Qatil Hukmaran Namanzoor,” and “Bijli Do, Go Nawaz Go”, the protestors shouted slogans demanding resignation of Federal Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Muhammad Asif.
The protestors, who reached the venue in the form of rallies from various parts of the city, were led by opposition leader in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan, former governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Mahmoodur Rashid, Punjab PPP president Manzoor Wattoo, PAT president Raheeq Abbasi and general secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Liaquat Baloch, PML-Q’s Chaudhry Zaheer and others.
Speaking to the protestors, the leaders of the parties blamed the government for the Karachi deaths and demanded that it should quit. Mr Ahsan said the joint opposition protest against the government was the first step towards united struggle against the rulers and the movement would not stop until achieving its goal.
Leading chant of slogans of “sharam karo haya karo”, he also (sarcastically) advised Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to change his (Shahbaz) name on his own as per his promise to save humiliation. A box was kept and the protestors were invited to suggest name of Shahbaz Sharif for failing to meet his promise. (Mr Sharif had during the 2013 election campaign promised to change his name if the PML-N government could not end loadshedding in six months.)
Mr Ahsan said the name found to be suggested by most of the people would be announced after counting.
Mr Rashid lamented that the poor consumers were being eliminated instead of power loadshedding. He said the time was not far when the rulers would be ousted from the power corridors.
Chaudhry Sarwar, who is also the Punjab PTI organiser, said the PML-N government lacked planning to end loadshedding. He said the rulers, who could not provide the masses justice and basic amenities, had no right to rule the country. He alleged that the PML-N set new records of bad governance and brought worst loadshedding that coupled with the heatwave resulted in large-scale deaths in Karachi.
Mr Wattoo said the rulers made no pro-people project and always introduced anti-people and anti-worker policies. He said the PML-N government had no time to solve health, education, water and power supply related problems and vowed to launch a movement against the Nawaz government. He demanded immediate resignation of Khwaja Asif and said if the government could not resolve the energy crisis, it should abdicate power at once.
Mr Baloch said the rulers had failed to fulfill their promises so morally they had lost their right to rule the country. He announced his party’s support for the opposition-led movement against loadshedding.
PAT’s Raheeq Abbasi said they would oust the rulers from power corridors and demanded that murder cases should be registered against the Nawaz government for loadshedding-related deaths.
Chaudhry Zaheer said the rulers had set new records of failure as loadshedding had made the masses cry. He lamented that dakay, fakay and nakay(robberies, hunger and police pickets) had become fate of the people of Punjab.
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