The opposition parties on Friday criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for increasing the prices of petroleum products.
In a notification issued on Thursday night, the government raised petroleum prices by up to Rs8.14 per litre with immediate effect.
Reacting to the notification, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif said that the incumbent government has “surpassed all limits of incompetency, inefficiency and corruption”.
“The government is about to increase inflation by raising the petroleum levy on the orders of IMF which is cruel. 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 government) have brought?”
The people are now praying to get rid of the PTI government, he claimed.
“Government officers are being changed because of incompetence but Imran Khan is [still] sitting on his seat after the biggest incompetence and corruption,” Shehbaz said, adding that it has been proved that the incumbent government can “only give takleef (trouble) to people instead of relief.”
PML-N leader Hamza Shehbaz said that the premier is not worried about the problems of the nation.
Talking to media, Hamza said that the PTI government has once again increased the prices of petroleum products without thinking about the survival of the masses. People are dying due to inflation but the ‘Bani Gala prince’ is not taking it seriously, he said.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Sherry Rehman rejected the recent increase in the prices of petroleum products.
In a statement, she said that Prime Minister Imran Khan is deceiving the people by jacking up the prices in the name of relief.
“Days after announcing a ‘relief package’, PTI govt drops another petrol bomb by hiking petrol prices by a whopping Rs8.14/L. 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,” she tweeted.
PPP Senator Bahramand Khan Tangi chose to protest the increase in petrol prices by cycling to parliament from Parliament Lodges.
“This selected and puppet prime minister has once again, in the darkness of the night, dropped a bomb of inflation and petrol on the public. I believe that this is a joke with the people and I appeal to the public of the entire country to come out.”
Meanwhile, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill said that the decision of increasing the petroleum prices was not a favorite one and that every aspect was analysed in this regard.
In a statement, the special assistant told that petroleum prices across the world have also been increased. The government will have to take more loan if it reduces the prices, he added.
