Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has announced to organize protests and public meetings against the government throughout Punjab after holding a protest against load shedding in the provincial headquarter on Thursday. Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Khurshid Shah joined the protest and warned the Prime Minister of serious consequences of the public uprising against him in the wake of Panama Leaks and Dawn Leaks amidst rising power outages in the country.

He addressed the party rally at the Nasir Bagh in the presence of PPP Punjab leadership; he said the rulers pushed the country back into darkness by opting for faulty energy policies. He held Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responsible for power outages in the country.

The PML-N leadership snatched away economical education and food from the people in addition to wealth through corruption, he said and added that the PML-N was leading the country for the past four years but the people are still enduring long hours of power outages.

He asserted that it was due to PPP's rally that Lahore was not subjected to power outages today. Earlier Shah outside Allama Yousaf Awan's residence said that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has taken revenge of tweet in Dawn leaks case. Addressing the rally, the PPP Punjab president Qamar Zaman Kaira castigated the government for its tall claims of taking Pakistan Steel Mills and PIA out of crisis, saying that the country has plunged into darkness with a rise in demand.

He said the power tariff is yet on higher side despite a drop in oil prices worldwide. He said the nation was asking the government about their performance over the last four years. He said two senior judges have announced verdict against the prime minister and the people of Pakistan are questioning about the performance of government over the last four years. He said both the Panama leaks and Dawn leaks would take the prime minister to the task.

He said neither the government of Zia-ul-Haq nor Musharraf could survive before the protest movement of PPP and added that the government of Nawaz Sharif should get ready to meet similar fate ahead. He said the patients are crying for health facilities in hospitals while the rulers are least bothered about the poor state of affairs, particularly in health and such other facilities. Convoys from different districts of Punjab including Lahore had joined the protest. The party workers were carrying hand fans during the rally. The organizers also placed a box at Nasir Bagh, seeking proposals from the workers on changing name of the Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017