The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML) on Wednesday renewed their verbal spat over the use of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for providing support to the flood-affected people in Punjab.
The PPP has long been advocating the proposal that the BISP would be most suitable way to support the flood victims, however, the Punjab government, led by the PML-N, is averse to the idea. The provincial government insists that the government’s flood relief efforts were going on well.
The BISP is a national programme to provide cash assistance to poor and vulnerable families, particularly targeting women. On Wednesday, First Lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari warned that it would be “irresponsible to not utilise” the BISP — the “most effective way” — to distribute aid.
Her comments came a day after Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari revealed that the provincial government would issue “relief cards” to the flood victims in their personal names from its own resources instead of using the BISP to assist them.
Aseefa wrote on her X social media account that recent unprecedented floods in Punjab impacted more than 4 million people, stressing that the BISP would be the most effective and fastest way for the distribution of aid.
“The Benazir Income Support Programme is the fastest and most effective way to distribute relief. Not utilizing one of the state’s key organizations, which has both the data and the capacity to deliver assistance, would be irresponsible,” she posted.
However, Bokhari on Wednesday strongly criticised the PPP dragging the BISP into the floods. “No one wants to abolish the BISP. The question is: why do you want to use it during floods?” Bukhari asked “Dragging it repeatedly into flood politics is exactly what we call politicisation,” she remarked.
She accused the PPP of ignoring the interests of the people of Punjab and resorting to flood politics. She defended Punjab government’s performance during the floods, saying that even the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari himself had praised Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
Questioning the PPP’s role in Punjab, the provincial information minister said: “When will you, while living in Punjab, ever fight Punjab’s case? Do you want the people of Punjab to be deprived of wheat, flour, and bread?”
She added: “If you were capable of doing anything, you wouldn’t be sitting at home telling us where the flood was going to strike or where the embankment was going to breach. Such decisions are made by governments according to situations and circumstances.”
