PTI under fire from own lawmaker

A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inaf (PTI) parliamentarian lashed out at his own government for failing to control inflation and unemployment.

“People are exhausted from the burden of food and fuel inflation and million have become food insecure due to unemployment,” said PTI MNA from Attock Major (retd) Tahir Sadiq. “If the government does not pay attention to solving the problems of inflation and unemployment, people will take revenge in the next elections.”

Sadiq said that his Major Group is a political reality in Attock district. “We had joined PTI in the wider interest of the people of the constituency,” he said echoing the challenge of Defence Minister Pervez Khattak who had said that PTI won from Nowshera due to him, rather than Imran Khan.

Addressing a convention of Major Youth Wing at Hassan Abdal, Sadiq said: “PTI is suffering due to wrong decisions of the party leadership and neglect of merit.”

Major Youth Wing leader Dr Chaudhry Talha organised the convention which was attended by Major (retd) Sadiq, Sadaqat Ali Khan, Asad Zaman Tahir Khel, Chaudhry Mudassir, Chaudhry Jamshed Akhtar, Zohair Khan, Sarfraz Ali Awan and the local leadership of PTI.

Speaking on the occasion, Sadiq said that people are fed up with inflation and unemployment. He said that the people of Attock would not be left alone and his Major Group would stand to raise its voice for them.

He said that the decision to join PTI was made in the public interest, however, “if the government makes decisions against the public interest, we will be forced to stand up and do what we should not want to do.”

He said that incompetent advisers including Zulfiqar Bukhari were asking for a share in the development funds and schemes as if the government was distributing candies among children. “Four ministers sitting in the parliament have been elected from Attock, yet no megaproject could be started here and no steps are being taken to employ the youth of the constituency,” he said.

He said there was no threat to the government from the opposition parties’ alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). The PDM is an alliance of 11 different ideologies that will tear each other apart in the days to come. The PTI government is its own worst enemy, he said.

Sadiq told the youth convention that the weaknesses of the government were incompetence and corruption from which the opposition was benefiting.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2021.