‘New provinces cannot be carved out on roads or in marketplaces’

LAHORE: Former Prime Minister and Pakistan Peoples Party Central Punjab President Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said on Tuesday that new provinces cannot be carved out on roads or in marketplaces, stressing that the Constitution lays down a clear procedure for such matters and that the existing system must continue until a new one is put in place.

Addressing a press conference at the residence of Divisional President Asif Bashir Bhagat, alongside senior party leaders including Secretary General Syed Hassan Murtaza, Rana Farooq Saeed, Faisal Mir and Asif Bhagat, Ashraf warned that debate for its own sake would only prove damaging.

He said the PPP’s alliance with the PML-N was solely for Pakistan’s stability, made by rising above party politics. On inflation, he said the trend was global, while Pakistan had emerged as a country resolving disputes. He also criticised the government’s solar policy, calling for reforms to curb load shedding.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026