Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday urged the nation to reject the 'politics of sit-ins and immorality' which inflicted a huge loss to the economy in the past. The premier, while addressing engineers and workers in connection with the under-construction hydropower project in Karot, recalled the 2014 sit-in, saying it had caused the postponement of the Chinese president's visit to the country at the time. “A sit-in is being planned again… we should not divide the nation… what message are you [Imran] giving through the sit-in,” he asked PTI chairman Imran Khan who is about to reach Islamabad''s D-Chowk for protest. It has been my conviction that Pakistan will progress only through sheer hard work. Politics of dharna is detrimental to progress & stability. We are focused on overcoming challenges of governance. Nothing can distract us from the task at hand. I owe it to people of Pakistan 🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/QhZA3gbyvS — Mian Shehbaz Sharif (@president_pmln) May 25, 2022 Without naming the party, PM Shehbaz said that the political party organising the protest was asked to suspend it for three days but they were adamant 'not to change their mind'. The premier noted that had the visit by the Chinese president taken place in 2014, the Karot power project – a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - would have been completed a year ago and contributed 720 megawatts of power to the national grid. The government, he maintained, is trying to rectify the economy and inflation inherited from the previous government. "By reducing the oil prices, the previous government left behind a landmine for the incoming one." He further said that the previous prime minister had enough time to drag the opposition to a tight corner and create division in the society, but he could not find the time to visit the gigantic project or control inflation, poverty or unemployment. The premier, who reviewed the progress of the project, said it faced some delays due to Covid and other related issues. PM Shehbaz, who is the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), added that after coming to power through a constitutional process, the incumbent government is striving to take measures to control inflation and stabilise the economy. Also read: Experts raise red flag for economy He apprised the participants that the Chinese engineers had assured early completion of the project and thanked the Chinese and Pakistani workers, and the departments and ministries concerned for taking an utmost interest in completing the project. The premier also thanked President Xi Jinping, PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and the chairman of Three Gorges, the company executing the project. He said that due to the project, the price of electricity would be gradually reduced to even Rs3 per unit, after the retirement of the debt. He especially thanked the Three Gorges head for agreeing to supply free-of-charge electricity to the national grid till the finalisation of the commercial operation to save Rs4 billion to the national kitty, terming it unprecedented and a gesture of strong China-Pakistan ties. “This is the China-Pakistan friendship and iron brotherhood...this is the passion to serve which everyone should have…the only solution is to work hard and learn from the past and reject sit-ins to achieve the lost grandeur,” he remarked. On the occasion, Premier Shehbaz also called for emulating the Chinese model of development. He said both the Punjab and Azad Kashmir governments would get Rs1.2 billion as a water use charge and would be spending Rs120 million annually for the next 30 years for Karot's uplift as the locals had sacrificed their properties for the project.
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