ISLAMABAD - Former President Asif Ali Zardari said yesterday that the government had failed to provide fertilizers to the farmers. In a message on the farmers’ tractor march scheduled today (January 24), he said the failure of farmers to reap the fruits of their labour was a gross injustice and economic exploitation of farmers. Zardari, who heads the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians, said that a prosperous farmer was the guarantee of an agriculturally stable Pakistan. 

“The PPP will uphold its tradition of justice to the farmers and make it easier for the farmers to get their crops to the market,” he said. Zardari said the manifesto of the PPP was an agriculturally strong Pakistan. The former president said that the purpose of the farmers’ tractor march was to raise voice against injustice with the farmers.

Earlier in the day, the PPP and the Awami National Party’s top leaders discussed the election alliance. PPP Secretary General Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and ANP Khyber Pakhtunkhaw provincial president Aimal Wali Khan held telephonic talks and agreed to cooperate in the upcoming local bodies elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They discussed local bodies’ elections including Dera Ismail Khan city mayoral election. 

Cooperation in LG polls agreed

The ANP, on the occasion, announced support for PPP city mayoral candidate Dera Ismail Khan Faisal Karim Kundi. “Nayyar Hussain Bukhari requested that ANP should support PPP candidate Faisal Karim Kundi and Aimal Wali Khan assured that ANP would also openly campaign for Faisal Karim Kundi,” said a PPP announcement.

Separately, PPP leader Shazia Marri that in the three and a half years of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, people had gone down the poverty line. “Imran Khan has imposed face inflation and unemployment. The people of the country are coming to Islamabad on February 27 to oust you from power,” she added.