ISLAMABAD: Fresh hike in the petroleum products irritated the opposition and the general public alike. On Friday (Nov 5), the opposition leaders declared “Takleef (pain) package” to relief package of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Opposition leaders said the government was making miserable the life of people in the country through frequent price-hike shocks.
Opposition leader and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said the present government had surpassed all limits of incompetency, inefficiency, and corruption.
“The government is inflating inflation by raising the petroleum levy on the orders of IMF which is cruel policy. The government has also given in to the IMF’s conditions for increasing electricity tariff. The government has given the public an ‘inflation package’. The nation is asking: these are the good days they (PTI leaders in government) have brought?”
He also made a comparison of the country’s situation to other regional states, saying that taxes on petroleum products were reduced in India while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had lower prices for diesel. The people were now praying to get rid of the PTI government, he added.
PML(N) leader said, “Government officers are being changed because of incompetence but Imran Khan is still sitting on his seat after the biggest incompetence and corruption.
The government had brought people to the point of ration cards in three years, he said, claiming that Prime Minister Imran had become the “killer of people’s joys”.
The price of cooking oil had also gone up by 130 per cent in three years, the PML-N president said. “A new storm of inflation has arrived with the announcement of relief package,” he said.
Unfortunately, every day dawns with horrible news for the people, he said, adding this incompetent/corrupt PTI govt & Pakistan can’t go together!”
PPP Vice President Sherry Rehman also said the petrol prices were raised two days after the announcement of the relief package.
“Days after announcing a relief package, the govt dropped another petrol bomb by hiking petrol prices by a whopping Rs8.14/per liter. Petrol prices now stand at a record Rs145.8/L. First time in Pakistan’s history that prices of all the petroleum products are above Rs110/L. #NayaPakistan,” Senator Sherry tweeted.
The PPP demanded an immediate reduction in the prices of petroleum products. PPP information secretary Shazia Marri warned the PTI government saying if the government did not decrease prices, there would be such a reaction that the government will not be able to survive.
She called on the people to be prepared as the PPP would soon announce plans for protest. “Imran Khan gave people takleef instead of relief. The time for accountability has arrived,” she said in a statement posted on Twitter.
