HAMID WALEED

LAHORE: The city of Lahore is set to witness a politically busy week as the workers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Pakistan Kissan Ittehad will be on roads to lodge their protests against the government.

PTI Chief Imran Khan also arrived in the city on Monday to mobilise the party workers for September 30th procession at Raiwind Road. The PTI diehard workers are heavily charged to participate in the procession. Also, the city is expecting a heavy influx of PTI workers from September 28th onwards. Sheikh Rasheed has claimed that the workers of PAT will also join the PTI procession towards the Raiwind Road.

The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad will be holding a mammoth rally on The Mall Road tomorrow where farmers from all around the province would participate and protest against the government.

The past experience suggests that the Kissan Ittehad leadership had a very strong following as and when it gave a call against the government. Earlier, the Kissan Ittehad had held impressive rallies against a price crash of potatoes and the high input cost, followed by separate packages from the federal and the Punjab governments.

The PPP has also decided to join the Kissan Ittehad rally where the opposition leader, Syed Khurshid Shah, would also address to express solidarity with farmers.

The city, particularly The Mall Road, also faced a terrible traffic mess on Monday due to annual elections of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Already, the traffic flows are heavily disturbed because of the construction of Orange Line train project.

The civil society circles have expressed their apprehensions over the situation, saying that taking to and bringing back the children from schools would be a challenging task for parents.

They further pointed out that they have no idea about the government’s plans on providing clear routes to ambulances.

Similarly, the traders in the city are also worried about their businesses, saying the number of buyers was yet improving in markets after Eid but the upcoming rallies and processions are likely to slow it down once again.