LAHORE – Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab Assembly parliamentarians raised eleven questions with Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Shahbaz Sharif on Tuesday and urged upon him to reply these all queries in person during the upcoming session of the provincial assembly. PPP Deputy parliamentarian leader Shaukat Basra, just before 48 hours of the Punjab Assembly’s 24th session, unveiled his party’s ’11-point Public Interest Agenda’ and raised several issues directly relating to the CM’s authorities and projects of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) led government in Punjab.
According to the agenda, the PPP leader asked the CM that firstly, he should take the provincial assembly in confidence about his absence from the House from a long time and secondly, he should also inform the House about the ministries which were directly under his supervision due to not appointing ministers for these departments.
Basra also asked the CM for informing the house about the total number of provincial ministers. He asked the CM to tell about the total debt of the province and explain why the government had taken it to run the business. “The government should also declare the heads of expenditure of these debts,” he added. A question about the deprivation of people of Southern Punjab is also included in the agenda and urged the CM to inform the house why his government was not taking steps to end deprivation of the said area.
PPP asked the CM to explain and provide details of the background of his statement that “Taliban should stop attacks on Punjab.” PPP also raised the issue of fewer powers of the provincial ministers and questioned why Shahbaz Sharif was running the official business through the bureaucracy while the cabinet had been made in the province. The issue of unification bloc in the provincial assembly has also been discussed in the agenda in which the CM has been asked to answer the House why he did such undemocratic act.
The issue of Sasti Rooti Scheme corruption and other projects of the government had also been highlighted demanding details of the actions taken against the culprits involved. In the last point of the agenda, the opposition party raised the question of political victimization in province saying that the CM should inform the House why the government was victimizing its political opponents in Punjab. At the end of the agenda, Shaukat Basra has announced that his party will release an advertisement in the name of Shahbaz Sharif as a ‘Missing Person’ if he would not join the upcoming session of the Punjab Assembly and not answer the questions included in the agenda directly.
