Daily Times

Sir: When is the Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif planning to set up a protest camp at Minar-e-Pakistan to agitate against load shedding? He did that when the PPP government had been accused of showing bias against Punjab generally and Lahore especially. He used to conduct official meetings there in the scorching heat with a few pedestal fans to cool the temperature. The idea had been to protest the government’s energy policy and its lack of interest in handling load shedding and to create solidarity with the people by living in conditions they are forced to live in because of outages.

Pakistan is perhaps facing worse load shedding this Ramzan and the surprising thing is that not a single person has come out to protest. Does it lend credence to the popular claim that the PML-N government was instigating the mob against load shedding in different parts of Punjab during PPP’s regime? Does it also mean that the opposition parties today do not find load shedding enough of a reason to smear the credibility of the government? Not a single political party is representing its people suffering relentless load shedding. Now that the PPP has been given a sweetener by the prime minister in Karachi — the metro bus project — it would rather go deeper into slumber then bear the sweltering heat along with the protestors.

The crux is that it is realpolitik that defines Pakistan’s political culture; the sit-ins, protests, street agitations, etc, are but stunts.

FATIMA ZOHRA

Lahore