Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has been informed bluntly of loadshedding’s adverse political effects by party’s members from the Punjab Assembly. They told him frankly that they feared that they might be defeated in elections, if the crisis persisted in its same intensity.The Prime Minister assured them that about 2000MW of energy would be added to the national grid, and not surprisingly was reluctant to give any deadline. However, the logic that loadshedding should be overcome because the PPP is afraid of being beaten at the hustings, reflects its double-standards. It is a shame that voters should be given electricity solely because a party’s electoral survival is at stake and not because it is one of their and the country’s basic need. The plague has now reached such a horrific extent that it is foolish to expect the current setup to bring it under control. The cries of the PPP MPAs are the foreboding of what is most likely going to happen in the elections. Short term measures like setting up more thermal power houses would exacerbate the problem, as reliance on furnace oil is way too costly for the economy to bear. Formerly a Minister for Water and Power, when he shelved the lifeline project of Kalabagh Dam, there isn’t much that he can do unless he includes the dam in his projects. Sadly, he is still looking for quick-fix solutions.