Lahore:
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML) on Wednesday renewed their verbal spat over the use of Benazir Income Support Program (Bisp) to support the flooded affected people in Punjab.
PPP has long advocated the proposal that Bisp would be the most appropriate way to support the flood victims, but the Punjab government, led by PML-N, is reluctant to the idea. The provincial government insists that the government’s flooding efforts are well done.
Bisp is a national program for providing cash assistance to poor and vulnerable families, especially targeting women. On Wednesday, First Lady Aseefa Bhutto warned Zardari that it would be “irresponsible not to use” Bisp – the “most effective way” – to distribute help.
Her comments came a day after Punjab -Information Minister Azma Bokhari revealed that the provincial government would issue “relief cards” to the flood victims in their personal names from his own resources instead of using Bisp to help them.
Aseefa wrote in his x social media account that the recent unprecedented floods in Punjab affected more than 4 million people and emphasized that bisp would be the most effective and fastest way in the distribution of assistance.
“Benazir -Income Support Program is the fastest and most effective way to distribute relief. Not using one of the state’s most important organizations that have both data and capacity to provide assistance would be irresponsible,” she released.
However, on Wednesday, Bokhari strongly criticized PPP that Bisp pulled into the floods. “Nobody wants to abolish Bisp. The question is: Why do you want to use it during floods?” Bukhari asked “to pull it repeatedly into flooding policy is exactly what we call politicization,” she noted.
She accused PPP of ignoring the interests of the Punjab people and resorting to flooding policy. She defended the Punjab government’s performance during the floods and said that even the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari himself had praised Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz.
Questioning PPP’s role in Punjab said the provincial Minister of Information, “When will you, while living in Punjab, ever fight for Punjab’s case? Do you want people in Punjab to be deprived of wheat, flour and bread?”
She added: “If you were able to do something, you wouldn’t sit at home and tell us where the flood should strike or where the dam should violate. Such decisions are made by governments according to situations and circumstances.”
