PTI wasn’t contacted over caretaker prime minister; says Imran Khan

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that his party was not taken on board on probable names for a caretaker prime minister, rejecting the claims made by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

While addressing a press conference, the cricketer-turned-politician said, “PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari have struck a deal to award each other five-year terms ‘to rule over the masses”.

He was of the opinion that his party would prefer playing the role of an active opposition rather than join hands with either party in a bid to become part of a post-election setup if they couldn’t form its government in the federation.

He lamented over the deteriorating situation of public service departments in the province, lashing out at the provincial government for making the lives of common people tougher.

The former captain lambasted at the Punjab saying the growth rate in the province was less than the national growth rate.

He observed, “The actual figures show that the average growth in Punjab has been a mere 2.5 percent compared to the national growth rate of 3.4 percent. Punjab, which is predominantly an agricultural area, has also suffered in this sector as the growth rate in this sector indicates only one percent growth compared to the national average of three percent”.

Commenting on energy crisis, Khan said that the provincial government has the mandate to produce electricity under Article 157 of the 18^th Amendment.

He, however, said that the chief minister had taken the option of scoring political points instead of going for solution. The Punjab government didn’t add one megawatt to the national grid, he added.

He remarked, “There has been a lot of talk of education by the Punjab government; however, statistics show that 5,700 schools have been shut down during their tenure. While the population has increased manifold, the gross enrollment at primary level has gone down by one percent”.

Terming the law and order situation in the province awful, he was of the opinion that the provincial government had spent the entire development fund on ill-planned projects.

In his view, such projects were merely an election gimmick in order to create hype amongst the masses and it cost more than the combined provincial budget for health and education.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 10 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.