Jamaat-e-Islami sets November 3 talks with government on petroleum levy

Jamaat-e-Islami deputy chief Liaquat Baloch said on Saturday that a final round of talks with the government on withdrawing the petroleum levy and giving relief to consumers will be held on 3 November, and warned that his party will march on Islamabad if no relief comes.

Baloch said Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar contacted him on WhatsApp to fix the date, and that Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal told him by telephone that arrangements for the meeting were being made. Express News carried his account.

He said the talks are meant to deliver a phased abolition of the levy on petroleum products and relief from inflation. "The government will have to give relief to the people," Express News quoted him as saying. Otherwise, he said, the Jamaat-e-Islami will take out a long march from Multan to Islamabad.

UrduPoint reported the same remarks, putting the threat in its headline as a march on Islamabad unless the government relieves the public of the petrol levy.

Before any march, Baloch said, the party will hold public gatherings in Quetta, Mirpur Khas, Bahawalpur, Mansehra and Sargodha. Committees have been formed to handle the march arrangements, he said.

The five cities named for the pre-march gatherings sit in four provinces: Quetta in Balochistan, Mirpur Khas in Sindh, Bahawalpur and Sargodha in Punjab, and Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The march itself would start in Multan, also in Punjab.

Baloch described the 3 November meeting as the final round of negotiations with the government committee, three days after his remarks.

Neither report named the members of that committee, the size of the levy, the amount of relief under discussion or a date for the march.

All the details in both reports were attributed to Baloch. Neither account carried a separate statement from the government, from Ishaq Dar or from Ahsan Iqbal.