Zardari denounces farmers’ package as political gimmick

Says govt trying to hoodwink growers ahead of LG polls

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari has denounced the bailout package for farmers announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, calling it a ‘political gimmick’.

In a statement on Wednesday, Zardari said the package was aimed at ‘hoodwinking’ farmers ahead of local government elections. “When opposition parties and the farmers were agitating for the latter’s relief, the government turned a deaf ear to their plight. But as soon as the LG polls were announced, it unveiled a so-called relief package,” he said.



The PPP co-chairperson expressed disappointment that the package was not only ‘too little too late’ but also did not specify the source of financing.

Read: PM announces Rs341 billion relief package for farmers

“The government of big business houses has deliberately targeted farmers to weaken the political power base of democratic opposition parties without realising the enormous damage done to the country in the process,” Zardari said. He added that farmers have been rightly demanding adequate support price for their produce which the government has stubbornly refused.

The former president said the agriculture sector witnessed a healthy boom during the PPP government. “However, the present government neglected the farming sector and diverted scarce resources to politically visible projects like Metro bus for drawing political mileage.”

He said the ‘deliberately maligned’ Sindh government was not only giving cash support to farmers but also giving them free fertiliser and seeds since the devastating floods of 2010. “As a result, Sindh today has a surplus of food enabling it to distribute more than one million bags of wheat free of cost in Thar alone.”

Zardari added that instead of drawing lesson from the Sindh government, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government is maligning it through federal agencies in an unconstitutional and arbitrary manner.

No one can remove PM

Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah on Wednesday said no one can remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as long as parliament and democracy exist in Pakistan. He was responding to the prime minister’s concerns that some people are trying to de-seat him.

Read: MQM did not keep its promises with PPP: Zardari

Shah said that although Nawaz’s belief is possible, it cannot happen with the co-existence of Parliament and democracy.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th,  2015.