LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Punjab President Dr. Yasmin Rashid has termed the new budget as anti-people and hostile, saying the government has not provided any relief to the people.

The incarcerated PTI leader expressed these views while talking to the media during her appearance in the court here on Saturday. She further said that the ‘fake’ Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif himself has admitted that this budget was prepared by the International Monetary Fund (IMF); his slavish thinking has been exposed before the nation.

“There was no relief for the people in the budget; the people of Pakistan were getting poorer every single day. The hostile budget would further put an unbearable financial burden on the poor people; on the one hand, the prevailing back-breaking inflation has pushed the people against the wall and, on the other hand, the new budget looks to increase the electricity and gas prices. A vast majority of the people are living below the poverty line,” she said.

She noted that the farmers in Punjab faced huge losses in their wheat crop; they were being forced to sell their produce at low prices, and no one dared to ask the caretaker government why they bought wheat last year.

She also castigated the Punjab government for arresting doctors in Punjab. She also noted that false cases were being made against hundreds of PTI workers, which was condemnable. “On the direction of the Punjab Chief Minister, the Punjab police were continuously oppressing our workers, including Alya Hamza Malik and Sanam Javed, which was unprecedented in Pakistan. The PTI legislators (in the Punjab Assembly) were not allowed to speak; 11 members of the opposition have been suspended, which was condemnable,” she added.

“Maryam Safdar thinks her family has the right to rule; she was trying to rule like kings in Punjab. Right now, police brutality in Punjab was at its peak and Punjab is in a state of chaos,” she said, adding that if democracy was to survive in Pakistan, justice should prevail in the country. She was optimistic that the courts would save democracy in Pakistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024