Doing politics at the cost of downtrodden

LAHORE - Believe it or not, some 64 lawmakers from Punjab including Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, his daughter Memoona Hashmi and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, have opted to deprive poor people in their constituencies of the fruits of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for political reasons.
It merits mentioning here that Federal govt launched BISP last year to support the poor families and decided to distribute forms of the said scheme through elected representatives irrespective of their party affiliations.
A quota of 5,000 forms was fixed for each MNA, Senator and MPA to be distributed among downtrodden people in their constituencies. Each poor family to be identified by lawmakers was to receive a sum of Rs 1,000 per month on permanent basis.
Sources in BISP revealed that PML-N MNAs, Javed Hashmi, Memoona Hashmi and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif received their quota of BISP forms for distribution among the deserving persons, but did not return these back to the concerned department for further investigation and payment of money, thereby depriving them of the financial assistance to be given by the govt on their recommendation.
Neither of the three legislators was available when this scribe tried to contact them to seek their version. Data collected from BISP’s regional office in Lahore has revealed that 61 Punjab Assembly members mostly belonging to PML-N and PML-Q, and also including son of PM Gilani, Abdul Qadir Gilani, did not even bother to receive the BISP forms for onward distribution among the poor of their respective constituencies. According to the break up, out of these 61 legislators, 40 belong to PML-N, 19 to PML-Q, while two have their affiliation with PPP. Punjab Assembly members who did not receive the forms include: