HAFIZABAD

Free, transparent and fair elections are inevitable to ameliorate condition of the peasants, workers, small traders and down-trodden segments of Pakistan.
The anti-farmer policies of the government have pushed them to the verge of bankruptcy, which is sheer injustice with the majority of the country’s population, declared PTI Chief Imran Khan while speaking to a mammoth gathering of farmers and growers at the first-ever Kissan Mazdoor Convention on Saturday.
He called upon the government to end such injustices and the indifference towards the agrarian economy without which the country could not prosper.
Khan regretted that due to anti-kissan policies have made the lives of the farmers miserable. He said few years back the price of paddy was Rs2,000 per 40 kg but it prices have plummet to Rs500 per 40 kg. The PTI chief informed that POL prices in the international market have declined by 30 percent but the farming community have been deprived of its benefits. Imran Khan ‘sarcastically’ demanded lowering down price of Maulana Fazlur Rehman (diesel oil) to provide some sort of relief to the cultivators. “How our cultivators can compete with India where the cultivators are being supplied electricity at 97 paisa per unit while in Pakistan electricity is being provided Rs11 per unit,” he drew a comparison.
Moreover, the cultivators in India are being provided subsidy on fertilizers, seed and other agricultural inputs but in Pakistan these commodities are being supplied at exorbitant rates.
The PTI said that rulers in India know the importance of agrarian commodity but their counterparts in Pakistan have ignored importance of the cultivators which are the backbone of national economy. He declared that he visited Hafizabad today to express his solidarity with the Kissan and called upon them to unite to resolve their problems.
He said that peasants and workers were facing starvation while the rulers are busy in spending billions of rupees on metro buses. He advised the government to follow the policy of India for providing seed, fertilizer, oil, electricity and other agricultural implements on subsidised rates, so that the nation could prosper.
He said that I had demanded opening of four constituencies and result of three of them remained in our favour while the result of fourth constituency of ‘rung baz’ of Sialkot would also be in our favour in the near future.
He reiterated his demand for resignation of EC members and called upon workers, youth and small traders to start preparation to join him in sit-in demonstration in Islamabad against the rigging on October 4 to save their future.
He said that the PTI would fully participate in the by-election and he would not run away and added that “I am not the person who had run away and settled in Jeddah after signing NRO of General (r) Pervaiz Mushraf”. He said that the present PTI is not of 2013 but of 2015 and would contest elections against PML-N in the Punjab and against MQM and PPP in Karachi and Sindh. Prominent among those who also addressed the convention including former MNA Chaudhry Mehdi Hassan Bhatti, former MPA Dr Muzaffar Ali Sheikh and Chaudhry Shoukat Ali Bhatti District Organiser PTI.
Despite humid weather, hundreds of peasants, wearing traditional turbans and holding tri-colour flags, performed ‘bhangra’ to beats of drum. They started arriving at the stadium even at 3pm. The road leading to the venue wore bridal look as the activists of PTI had decorated the route with party flags and buntings.
Heavy police contingent was deployed in and around the stadium and on the road leading to the venue. On his arrival the party activists danced on the tune of party songs and full throated slogans of “PTI I I, Imran Khan Zindabad and ‘Go Nawaz Go.”