RAWALPINDI:Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid said on Saturday that for the first time no political party or any political leader was bringing people to the streets, but electricity and petrol prices, unemployment and inflation were forcing people to take to streets.

In a statement on microblogging website X, Mr Rashid said after the triple century of the dollar, petrol and diesel prices had also crossed 300 mark. “If dollar value rises to Rs 331 in the open market, the electricity bills, edible oil and petrol will become expensive. More the value of rupee falls, more the inflation will go up,” said Rashid. The senior politician said the problem was no longer political now but it had become economic.

“People are the state and the inflation has played havoc with them,” added Rashid. The former interior minister said no one knew when the elections would be held, but the way the inflation was increasing, every family was suffering hard and there was no one to check it.

Rashid said the caretaker finance minister had also expressed her helplessness. She said she didn’t know situation was so grave, he said. “Neither the bureaucracy is working nor the IMF is listening to,” said Rashid.

Talking about the situation in the country, the AML head said no factory was running, shopkeepers were worried, and only the gambling on dollar was ongoing. He said there no one was investing in the country, remittances were decreasing, factories were closing, there was less business for the shopkeepers, and only God knew who had the solution to this sky-high inflation and unemployment. The senior politician said no one was obeying decisions (of courts), Constitution and law had become a joke.

The AML chief criticised the previous government and said that economic and political thieves had run away to London. People were feeling themselves in quagmire of issues. MPO 3 and MPO 16 was widely been used to fulfil their (rulers) designs in the country and no one was obeying the verdicts of the courts.