2009 A Year of Doom and Gloom for Punjab: Moonis Elahi

Lahore, December 31, 2009: In 2009, Punjab faced the worst period of economic depression and poor governance since independence and the people of the province spent the entire year in a severe environment of doom and gloom due to an incompetent provincial set up.

This was stated by Moonis Elahi, senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League in a meeting with party workers on the eve of the outgoing year. He said that the N League government of Punjab despite attaining power through an election kept its undemocratic agenda at full throttle and ransacked all democratic institutions including the assembly and the local governments throughout 2009.

Moonis Elahi cited the atta and sugar crises occurring in 2009 and the unfortunate deaths of 22 Pakistanis while standing in flour rows as the darkest examples of the N League government’s poor performance in Punjab. Moonis Elahi while lashing out at the poor performance of Punjab government in 2009 also pointed out at the alarming increase in unemployment, inflation and crimes in the province. He further said that various previously unheard of anti-people steps and tactics were also freely employed by the N League government in the ending year including use of brute police force to suppress and torture farmers, teachers, students, clerks, industrial workers and other underprivileged sections of the country’s largest province. Commenting on Punjab’s poor economic performance in 2009, Moonis Elahi reminded the party workers present in the meeting that in 2007 Punjab was a financially surplus province but in 2009 due to the present Punjab regime’s incompetence, Punjab had come to the verge of financial bankruptcy.

He strongly criticized the “Punjab for Sale” policy where valuable provincial assets were being auctioned to service the huge provincial debts amassed by an incompetent “Neelaam (auction) League” government in the last two years. Moonis Elahi also quoted President Zardari’s comments made in a speech at Larkana where he sounded highly critical of the poor performance of his coalition partners in Punjab. The senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League said that the internal tug of war between the centre and Punjab had greatly hampered progress in the province and had given the criminal and terrorist elements an open field to target the innocent in the year 2009. Moonis Elahi urged party workers to stand united and prayed for better times in 2010 for Punjab and Pakistan.