Lahore:
Confusion continues to swirl in PPP over his alleged plans to arrange a nationwide protest against the federal budget as conflicting voices emerge from the party’s ranks.
While some insiders deny such a plan, others maintain that a strategy was actually in the works, but was mainly driven by the party’s Punjab Wing, as the central party has not been fully engaged in the decision.
Pakistan Peoples Party, whose senior leader Chaudhary Manzoor announced a nationwide protest against the draft budget is still a key coalition partner in the federal government.
Without its support, the PML-N-led government would be omitted on a limb. Any official protest call from the party’s central management would signal a withdrawal of support to the financial bill that casts the budget’s passage in serious doubt.
However, party leaders with whom Express Pakinomist spoke suggested that Manzoor’s call was more of a solo aircraft than a coordinated party line. While some leaders in the central Punjab gather behind it, the move has not received a formal green light from the party’s top brass.
According to Insiders, the protest plan was shaped as an attempt to exploit the growing dissatisfaction among farmers and workers who were left high and dry by government policy.
The party by reaching out to farmers and workers would try to gather support before embarking on a protest plan as it lacks adequate muscle in Punjab to hit roads without them.
Senior Vice President Central Punjab Rana Farooq Saeed said they had not been informed by the party of any protest plan. He asked, under whose authority Manzoor had made the call.
However, he added that the party does not approve the budget as it did not give anything to farmers and workers. “It would be wrong to even call it a budget,” he said. Despite these reservations, the party has not yet made a formal decision.
“Given that we are allies at the center, we cannot give impulsive statements against the budget,” he said.
The Central Party Secretary -General Hasan Murtaza avoided giving a direct answer regarding any party plans to hold a protest demonstration throughout the country.
He said they were allies of the government and would try to turn some meaning into PML-N over the shining discrepancies in the budget. If the dialogue failed, he added, they would eventually hit roads.
Asking the central party had rejected the budget, which would mean that PPP would withhold support, he said the decision would be made by the central management. However, he clarified that the party would not “stand in for PML-N’s error”.
“They will not carry their weight while sucking the life out of poor people and putting their own pockets,” he said.
He performed several complaints from the lack of renegotiating capacity payments for taxing solar panels.
When asked about senior leader Naveed Qamar’s recognition of thorough consultation sessions with PML-N on the budget, he replied that “consultation does not mean that their input is incorporated”.
On Thursday, several media reported that PPP had rejected the federal budget for the coming fiscal year and announced a nationwide protest campaign against it.
The impression was formed after Chaudhary Manzoor Ahmad, who leads PPP’s People’s Labor Bureau, paralyzed the federal government at a press conference in Islamabad to present a budget that favors the wealthy and ignores the misery and poor work -class.
The PPP leader said the party had begun to contact unions across the country to mobilize support for protest demonstrations. He said demonstrations would be held in all provinces before the passage of the federal budget in the National Assembly.
When senior PPP leader Naveed Qamar was asked to comment on the budget, he said the party recognized the government was going a tightening under the IMF program.
However, he also said that the government’s policies were wrongly adjusted and that if PPP designed the budget, it would have been very different.
At no time during the program, he directly rejected the budget or announced plans for protest walls.
