Nawaz promises interest-free loans to peasants

Says if voted to power, PML-N will restore order in Karachi.

HYDERABAD:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) kicked off its election campaign in Sindh with the party’s chief, Nawaz Sharif, addressing a public meeting in Tando Allahyar district on Monday. The party – which was wiped out from the province in the 2008 elections – is now trying to cash in on the resentment against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the province.

“[President] Zardari’s spokesperson asks me why I criticised him. I ask them to show me one good thing that you have done for Sindh and for the country. Even your media advertisement doesn’t have anything to show,” Nawaz told his supporters. He also hit out at former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for ‘selling jobs and failing to rehabilitate millions of people who were affected by floods in the last three years’.

“We will build universities and medical colleges to provide education to the youth to make Sindh prosperous,” he said. The PML-N chief also promised the peasants that if voted to power, his party will provide interest-free loans. “It’s a big and serious commitment that I am making today.”

He criticised the previous provincial government for not providing the citizens of Karachi a mass transit system like the Metro Bus in Lahore. He blamed the PPP for the unabated killing of innocent people, political workers, businessmen, doctors and social workers in Karachi.

“Karachi was peaceful during our last government. We parted ways with the MQM and sacked the provincial government when [former Sindh governor] Hakim Saeed was killed,” he said and pledged to end the unending cycle of violence in Karachi and other parts of Sindh if the PML-N was voted to power.

Citing security fears in the election campaign, Nawaz observed that conditions were not favourable for elections. However, he stressed that the elections should be held on time. “Elections are indispensable for stability of Pakistan,” he added.

In Sindh, the PML-N is contesting elections as a part of a 10-party alliance which also includes PML-F, National People’s Party (NPP) religious and nationalist parties. The alliance agreed to give two seats – NA-223 and PS-51 – to PML-N candidates Dr Raheela Magsi and her brother Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, respectively.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2013.