Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Yasmin Rashid said on Monday the government had planned 15-day Independence Day celebrations because it was afraid of the party’s proposed Tsunami March on August 14.
“They have panicked… they don’t want our Long March to reach D-Chowk in Islamabad,” Rashid told a press conference.
She said the detection of polio virus in Lahore had showed that the city was not polio-free as the government claimed.
She said the government had not fulfilled it promise of upgrading several hospitals in the province, particularly in Gujranwala and Sialkot.
“If the chief minister can complete the Azadi Chowk Flyover in 165 days, why can he not upgrade the hospitals in seven years of his rule?”
PTI Punjab Information Secretary Andleeb Abbas said hours of unscheduled load shedding had exposed the government’s claim that it was capable of overcoming energy crisis.
She said the government had been making a false statement of generating 90 megawatts through the Nandipur power project.
“Not a single megawatt has been added to the national grid in the last one year,” she said.
PTI National Assembly member Shafqat Mehmood said the government’s announcement of 15-day Independence Day celebrations was a “clear indication of their loss of sanity”.
He said the government did not want to bring electoral reforms.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2014.