Daily Times

Sir: The PPP has certainly delivered to the powerful and influential. From a party committed to serve the poor under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the PPP has become a party with the sole objective to look after the interests of powerful agriculture, sugar and cement barons and the land mafia. During its four uninterrupted years’ rule, it brought the support price of all agricultural produce at par with international prices, but forgot to increase the daily/monthly wages of haris or labourers who work for the landowners. This opened up a bonanza of power, influence and money for the industrialists. As if this was not enough, the state provided an across the board relief costing taxpayers Rs 75 billion annually in subsidy for fertilisers, used by small and big landowners. The affluence of landowning agriculturists can be gauged from the fact that those living at farmhouses use imported and expensive SUVs but those living in the cities prefer using the BMW7 series or the latest Mercedes, and some even private airplanes. The policies of the government have made the life of the masses a living hell, who can no longer afford to eat two meals a day, because the cost of all basic food items has risen by 75 to 100 percent in the past four years. In its zest to follow the policy of reconciliation only to consolidate its rule and power, the PPP has ignored issues like power generation, health, education and security of life and private property. With unemployment and inflation rising at the same level, people are literally dying of, if not hunger, then disappointment and depression, looking at the rate of suicides in the country. Students are killing themselves because they could not see any future for themselves.

MALIK TARIQ ALI

Lahore