Rejoinder: Govt not pressuring transporters

“The opposition has been levelling baseless allegations [against the government] in order to colour their event,” he told reporters after attending the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-elected office-bearers of the Lahore Education Reporter Association at Punjab University on Saturday.

“To protest or to hold a rally is a democratic right of every political party but this right should be employed for the promotion of democracy rather than maligning democracy,” Rashid said. “It is regrettable that a leader of a certain party has abused democracy in public.”

Calling PTI’s allegations baseless, the minister pointed out that the party was in power in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and said there could not be any bar on the transporters.

Earlier, while addressing the ceremony, Rashid said people must be given the right to the difference of opinion and freedom of expression in a democratic society.

“Freedom is incomplete without the right to differ and the societies become static without it,” he said, adding that it was the responsibility of democratic governments to tolerate the difference of opinion and dissent ‘which were the basis of democracy’. “Only those societies reached the pinnacle of glory and progress in the world which had promoted difference of opinion and respected each other’s views.”

Meanwhile people across Punjab have been left unmoved by the PTI appeal for the May 11 protest rally.

Local sources said people have not shown interest in the PTI’s rally in any district of Punjab as posters and banners of the activity are not visible. This seems to reflect that people instead of engaging themselves in the politics of protest want to get their problems solved and see the country progress.

This public reaction is surely disappointing for people carrying out the politics of protest and sends across a message to politicians that they should review their political stance.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2014.