Zardari's master stroke in Punjab

PPP increases wheat support price to 950 rupees per 40kg.

A little history:

ZA Bhutto is remembered by the rural voters - particularly of the Punjab - not so much for his ideological mumbo jumbo, but for the fact that he gave people a means to earn 'roti, kaprra, makan'. Namely the policies of providing everyone with a passport so people could go to the Middle East during the oil boom and send remittances, electronics goods, etc etc.

Secondly, and perhaps more relevant to today, was the fact that Bhutto gave farmers parity pricing for crops such as cotton and rice. This was a heaven sent opportunity as the farmers were nearly doubling their income by getting international prices for their produce.

These were the real reasons ZA Bhutto and PPP made Punjab their bastion.


Back to today, I think everyone was caught off-guard with the latest policy offered by Zardari's PPP.

The wheat support price has been raised to 950 rupees - nearly twice what it was not long ago (and up from 650 recently). After accounting for the elimination of subsidies in costs of input(s), this could easily translate into a 200 rupees plus increase in profits / 40 kg (mann) for the farmers come April.

70% of Pakistan's population is rural. It'll be interesting how the other parties sway the rural vote-bank. Of particular interest is how the PML-N responds. PPP is targetting to win Punjab back. It could not have come up with a better or more powerful policy than to increase the wheat support prices for producers.

Economically speaking, one should never hurt the producers. In that respect the PPP's policy is sound too. However, they'll offer a 10 billion subsidy to the consumers - namely those of the cities so that the prices for roti for the city folks don't go through the roof. But the city folks are only 30% of Pakistan.

But it seems like the PPP is more interested in the rural vote bank than the urban one. If no other party comes up with alternatives to PPP's wheat price initiative, it'll leave everyone else fighting for the smaller urban votebank. PML-N, PTI, JI etc will further end up in a war to canabalize each other's voters in the city.

I am sure the PML-N realizes the gravity of the situation. The ground may just slip from under their feet. But so should we in PTI. There is an anticipated district to district march of Chairman Khan later this month. What should we offer during those visits?

In the end, this competition is great for the Pakistani people and just goes to show just how and why democracy is beautiful. PTI opened just 3 tandoor in Lahore and PML-N and Shahbaz Sharif was running around trying to get the 100's of tandoors of Lahore and Rawalpindi to lower prices to 2 rupees per roti.

The political parties and their leadership know that they must work for their constituents. We may have an imperfect democracy, we may still not have the most important element of an independent judiciary, but it doesn't mean the people are out of reckoning.