First sugar, then oil, then cigrattes, then electricity and also fuel price hike on the cards. Perhaps this is the gift of the Purana Pakistan and new government of under a week old.
It was on January 01 this year when Opposition leaders Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday berated Prime Minister Imran Khan over the government’s move to hike the price of petroleum products. In separate statements, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif demanded the prime minister’s resignation from office. Governments across the world celebrate festive occasions by bringing down prices, but on the contrary, Imran Niazi has dropped an inflation bomb on the masses,” he said. The PML-N president asked the prime minister to step down instead of “punishing” the masses due to his “incompetency”.
Now the public is asking whom we should ask to resign. Salaries have not kept up with the increases, pushing people to forego purchases, substitute cheaper alternatives, or hunt for something free this Ramadan. Even families with higher incomes, who might ordinarily be insulated from the pressures, are reconsidering their ordinary spending, .
In Iran on June 2020 the head of an Iranian parliamentary committee had said 230 people were killed during the November protests triggered by a spike in petrol prices – the first time an official has given an overall death toll for the unrest. Are we inviting such disaster.
