- PPP chairman ‘sad’ to know 12% literacy rate in Punjab’s southern parts
Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Sunday said that days of ‘deprivation’ for the people of South Punjab were over and asked the people of the region to get ready for the dawn of development, prosperity and equal opportunities.
He was talking to his party’s leaders and workers from South Punjab at the Bilawal House in Lahore during interviews for the PPP candidates for different districts including Multan Division, Bahawalpur Division, and districts of Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, and Lodhran.
Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former Punjab governor Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, Natasha Daultana, Shaukat Basra, Abdul Qadir Shaheen and senior PPP leaders were also present on the occasion. Bilawal said that he felt sad to know that there was only 12% literacy rate in South Punjab while its share in the development budget in the province was meager.
Bilawal said that PPP has great plans for what he believe ‘poverty-ridden’ people of South Punjab and pledged to emancipate them from ‘Takht-e-Raiwind’ in the next general elections. Before the interviews, the family and children of Imtiaz Ahmed met the PPP chairman at the Bilawal House. Imtiaz Ahmed was killed during an attack on party’s South Punjab Information Secretary Shaukat Basra in Haroonabad.
The PPP chairman expressed grave concern that the culprits involved were roaming freely and the government was not ready to lay hands on them. He said that the Punjab government announced for fair investigations but in fact it appears to be hands in gloves with those behind the killing.
NO ELECTORAL ALLIANCE: PPP spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said in Islamabad that there was no truth in reports in a section of the media that the PPP has decided to enter into electoral alliance with one or the other party in anticipation of general elections.
Contradicting such report, he said that neither any electoral alliance had been formed with any political party nor was under consideration at this stage. He said that the electoral alliances by way of seat adjustments and other known methods were normally made between political parties during elections and there was nothing unusual.
However, it is too early and the PPP has not even given a thought let alone having already forged any electoral alliance, he said. “The party guided by its manifesto, its world view of fundamental issues confronting the nation and the aspirations of workers will take appropriate decision when the time comes,” he said.
