PTI’s Tiger Force Vs PML N’s Sher Jawan
Although many political parties in the country have Youth Wings that mostly operate in educational institutions. However, the trend of a volunteer force of party supporters kicked-off by PTI has started to expand roots.
WEB DESK: After the Tiger Force launched by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) that was hailed largely by the public for its working during the coronavirus lockdown, Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) has also decided to pull together its young workers.
Party’s Vice President Maryam Nawaz Sharif took to twitter on Saturday to announce the decision. In a series of tweets, she invited the party youth to join the movement.
She asked the party’s young workers to join the movement so as to change destiny of the country and take the decisions concerning the country in their own hands. “Sher jawan, mulk ki aan, qaum ki shaan,” the tweet read further.
Although many political parties in the country have Youth Wings that mostly operate in educational institutions. However, the trend of a volunteer force of party supporters kicked-off by PTI has started to expand roots.
Students were Quaid’s frontline force at the time of Independence. Once again Pak beckons you. Time has come to restore Quaid’s Pak. It is also a fight for your future. Join hands with Nawaz Sharif in this final battle of “Vote ko izat do”. Launching PMLN Sher Jawan tomorrow IA🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/ATo6rOM4bB
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) October 31, 2020
The mobilization of youth under the banner of Tiger Force helped the government during the coronavirus lockdown as a large number of youngsters came forward to serve under the supervision of the PTI government.
The CRTF had become formally operational in three provinces — Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan — in May after an address to its members by Prime Minister Khan.
The highest number of over 619,000 volunteers had got themselves registered as CRTF members in Punjab, followed by over 154,000 in Sindh, 135,000 in KP, about 14,000 in Balochistan, 13,800 in Islamabad, 11,300 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 5,800 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
The Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sindh government had opposed the constitution of the CRTF in the presence of local administration.
The Sindh government was of the view that it already had the services of volunteers of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the Youth Parliament at its disposal.
Apart from this, the young volunteers are also in the field to combat the ongoing price hike in different parts of the country and are assisting the administrations to trace profiteers.
Although the Government’s decision to use the CRTF for price monitoring sparked a controversy as the opposition and legal experts have already been questioning working of the CRTF volunteers without having any legal cover.
Initially, the government had announced that major responsibilities of the CRTF members would be to point out hoarding, artificial inflation and violation of laws, supervising ration distribution, making public announcements and preparations for funerals, providing assistance in imposing lockdown and creating awareness about coronavirus.
The opposition parties had opposed the government’s plan of raising the force, saying that the move would politicise the national effort to fight coronavirus. The opposition parties had alleged that the CRTF would be used to oblige favourites by disbursing money out of the national kitty among them.
The Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Shahbaz Sharif, while rejecting the idea had termed it a “political gimmick” and called for restoration of local bodies to extend help to the people.
Although the opposition parties have had been critical of the “Tiger Force”, saying that it is more of a political entity than social one. However, the movement the PML-N is going to launch seems to be an attempt to undermine the PTI’s “Tiger Force”.
The youngsters who refrained from joining Tiger Force for political differences will now have another platform to choose from. The contest between the parties to develop a better and effective volunteer force than the competitor would impel them to improve performance which would ultimately benefit the cause they would be performing.
Besides, this trend will force other parties to jump in the race too which would thus increase the youth’s involvement in politics at grass-root level.
