Siraj calls for granting voting right to overseas Pakistanis

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has called upon the government to immediately grant the voting right to over two million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia.
Talking to the media at the airport on Wednesday on the return from an 18-day visit to Saudi Arabia, he urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to make necessary arrangements to facilitate the voting by Pakistanis in the holy land.
Sirajul Haq said overseas Pakistanis were ready for every sacrifice for the country but nobody cared for them at all. He said Pakistani embassies abroad had totally failed to solve the problems of overseas Pakistanis. He said Pakistanis abroad wanted to play an active role in the national politics to ensure better governance in the country but they were being denied the right to vote.
Expressing deep concern over the heavy losses caused by rains and floods in different parts of the country, JI chief said it was unfortunate that rulers were persistently avoiding the construction of new dams. He said on coming to power JI would build about 100 dams to overcome the water and power crisis and solve the problems of recurring floods. He urged the government to begin work on Bhasha Dam on war footing as there was a national consensus on this project.
He said it was the worst example of indifference to leave the country by the PM in a natural calamity adding the countries were not run through mobile phones or messages. Sirajul Haq said the government had neither made any arrangements for timely warning
to the people nor were concrete measures being taken to save the lives of the people during floods. This was the height of indifference and selfishness, he added.
He said millions of people had been affected by heavy rains and floods, scores of people had drowned in the flood waters, hundreds of houses had been washed away and crops over vast areas had been destroyed, but the rulers remained the silent spectators. He stressed the volunteers of the Al-Khidmat Foundation to intensify their efforts and provide every possible help to the flood affected people.