Daily Times

Torrential rains in Lahore and accumulated rain water in different areas of the metropolitan gave an opportunity to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to criticise the development works carried out by the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) who remained in power in the province for last 10 years.

As heavy downpour inundated most parts of the city on Tuesday, PTI Chairman Imran Khan came on the roads to visit the low-lying areas including Davis Road, Lakshmi Chowk and GPO Chowk where the accumulated rain water couldn’t drain-out until late. Lashing out at former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif during his visit to GPO Chowk, where a huge sinkhole emerged at the construction site of Orange Line Metro Train, Imran Khan said that Shehbaz Sharif talked repeatedly to make Lahore like Paris but his tall claims have been exposed today as no road drowns in Paris when it rains. He further added that Sharif preferred to initiate massive development projects because such huge projects give him heavy kickbacks and he tries to make a fool out of people by presenting such cosmetic and shiny projects to get their votes.

“Sharif wouldn’t come on the roads to hear the grievances of people today because of the wrath of the voters as he is not in a position to face them because he couldn’t give even a single sewerage system to this city during his long stint as chief minister,” Khan said, who was accompanied by Aleem Khan, Dr Yasmin Rashid and Jahangir Tareen.

Meanwhile, PTI’s candidate from NA-133 Ijaz Chaudhry also lashed out at Sharif for the poor drainage system of Lahore and dared him to come on the roads to have a glimpse of public miseries that people are facing because of the torrential rain.

“Sharif isn’t able today to meet the people of Lahore because he failed to provide them basic facilities of drainage system,” he said during his visit of UC 225, 220, 239 and 234 on Tuesday.

After criticism of PTI leaders, Sharif came on the roads in the evening and visited his constituency of NA-132 from where he is contesting the election while also launching his formal campaign in the constituency. It is worth mentioning that Sharif received huge response in NA-132 during his maiden visit of the constituency despite the fact that PTI blamed him of poor drainage system of Lahore the same day.

People chanted slogans of “Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif” and “Dekho dekho kaun aya. Sher aya sher aya” as he came outside from his vehicle and addressed the people while standing on his vehicle.

Meanwhile, PML-N candidate from NA-131 Khawaja Saad Rafique took to his official Twitter account while criticising the PTI leadership and said that the sewerage system of Lahore is much better than Karachi and Peshawar. He went on to say that “our government used to ensure the timely cleanliness of all the nullahs and watercourses ahead of the monsoon period and our ministers were on toes on the roads during the first monsoon rain but the caretaker government could not be seen anywhere today”.

Meanwhile, torrential rain disrupted the political activities in the city as a public gathering in Shahdara NA-123 where PTI’s central leader Chaudhry Sarwar was supposed to come was cancelled due to heavy rain. Dr Yasmin Rashid, who carries out her door to door campaign on daily basis also couldn’t continue her campaign on Tuesday due to heavy rain in the city. Similarly, PML-N President Sharif also had to cancel his visit to Kasur where he was supposed to address a workers’ convention of PML-N on Tuesday.

Published in Daily Times, July 4^th 2018.