Speaking his mind: PML-N cares for power, not Punjab’s poor

Khosa says he has sent letters to the PM, CM to solve young doctors’ problems.

LAHORE: Governor Sardar Latif Khosa said on Thursday that in removing the Pakistan Peoples Party from the Punjab cabinet the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had shown that it only cared about power and did not respect people’s mandate. The decision, he said, had exposed the PML-N as a party of usurpers.

Khosa was speaking at a ceremony held at the Governor’s House to distribute Rs100,000 cheques among 59 beneficiaries of the Wasela-i-Haq Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

He said he had refused to administer oath to the members of the Unification Bloc in the Punjab Assembly because they were lotas (turncoats).

He said the PPP had not resisted the PML-N’s removal of its ministers from the cabinet in the province because it did not want to derail democracy. He said the PPP wanted the governments in the centre as well as the province to complete their five-year term. Khosa said the PPP would win the next general election in the province by a landslide and form its government. He said the party had already reversed all amendments to the constitution by the dictators.

He accused the PML-N of victimising the PPP. He said Benazir Bhutto had buried past differences in signing the Charter of Democracy (CoD) but the PML-N had not changed and was still behaving the way it had in the past.

He urged the PPP workers not to fall for claims and suggestions that he had a soft corner for the PML-N. He rejected such reports as baseless propaganda and said that he was a true PPP jiyala.

Earlier, some party workers in the audience had raised slogans against the governor accusing him of ignoring PPP jiyalas.

Khosa said that as governor he was performing his role in accordance with the constitution. He said he had rejected several summaries sent by the provincial government that violated laws.

Speaking about the BISP, Khosa said that Rs70 billion had so far been distributed among four million deserving families under the programme. He said the programme would cover another million families by the next year.

BISP chairperson Farzana Raja said that 70 per cent of a national poverty survey was complete and that in the next year it would be extended to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

She said that so far 10 million women in the country had been issued identity cards despite strong opposition from extremist elements in the society. Raja criticised the PML-N for boycotting the joint session of the parliament.

The cheques handed out to the beneficiaries from Gujranwala, Sahiwal and Sargodha in Thursday’s ceremony were the first of the three instalments to be paid under the BISP.

Governor Khosa earlier received a delegation of the Young Doctors Association. According to handout issued by the Governor’s House, the governor has sent a letter to the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister help solve the doctors’ problems.

He said that most hard working and intelligent students were selected for medical studies and once they embarked on their careers they should not be treated the way the provincial government was treating them. He said these doctors were an asset for the country. The government, he said, should acknowledge their efforts and raise their salaries.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th_, 2011.