Nationalist leaders rebuke ruling elite for ignoring people

Say rulers engaged in power struggle ignore inflation, unemployment food security

KARACHI:

With pillars of state trying to pull each other to the ground, the public issues were no more a priority for the ruling elite said Qomi Awami Tehreek President Ayaz Latif Palijo on Sunday.

Issues of labourers, peasants, students, women and the working class are no longer on the agenda of the establishment, mainstream political parties and the judiciary.

In a statement issued in Hyderabad on Sunday Palijo said the establishment, the judiciary and the parliament being the pillars of state were enmeshed in power politics since 2016 owing to which these centres of power have dropped common people from their priorities.

"Neither the rulers have given any 10-year development plan nor are they showing any path to reform the education, health, agriculture and industries sectors."

He believed that the existing inflation and unemployment have also born out of a lack of concern of the ruling class for the ordinary people.

He contended that the powers that be have been preventing real democracy from taking roots in the country as managed elections bring selected rulers. He emphasized that the country required a new social, constitutional and economic charter.

People suffer repercussions

Separately at a press conference Jeay Sindh Mahaz President Riaz Chandio said the establishment tolerated violent protests in Punjab but the voices of the people of Sindh and Balochistan who demand their rights are suppressed.

He condemned the ongoing tug of war for power among the mainstream political parties, arguing that the common people are suffering the repercussions of their fights in the form of inflation, violence and uncertainty.

He reiterated that the digital census 2023 has proved to be a fraud and announced a strike call for May 28 to protest against the census.

Chandio said the population census was supposed to be completed in four weeks by March 31.

However, the process has been extended by 45 days till May 15. He alleged that around five million people have been falsely counted in Karachi. He not only blamed Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami for the alleged ethnic discrimination but also the Pakistan Peoples Party and its provincial government.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2023.