The PML-N on Sunday decided to boycott the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) to express solidarity with public displeasure over the government’s sudden decision to increase fuel prices.
In a statement, Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali announced holding of a protest in Rawalpindi on Wednesday against the anti-public attitude of the government. He said that for further strategy, the PML-N leadership would be consulted and other political parties would also be invited in countrywide protests. Expressing his utmost disgust with the PPP-led government’s policies, he said that the “Zardari set up” felt satisfaction in troubling the masses.
“If the nation accepts this unjustified decision of price hike silently, it will be inferred that they deserve rulers such as Zardari. Attaching much expectation with the present rulers is futile,” he added. “The current price hike in petroleum prices is an indication of anti-public policies of the government but it also speaks volume about inability and incompetence of the rulers,” he said. Nisar said that the country’s prime minister had been on visits abroad while leaving the nation to bear the burden of load shedding, price hike and other problems.
The opposition leader said that the present surge was a move to meet the extravagant lifestyle of the rulers and questioned what they wanted to achieve with such negative policies. “It appears that rulers are ignorant of basic principals of human sympathy,” he said, urging the nation to come on streets for their due rights. Nisar said that all democratic loving political parties, traders, students and civil society members would have to stop the corrupt government.