Former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan is following in the footsteps of former military dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf, adding that the incumbent government has ruined the national consensus in the country.
Speaking to PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira on the coronavirus crisis and the evolving political situation in the country, Zardari criticised the government, saying that it wants to curtail the constitutional and financial powers of provinces.
“This government is fighting the opposition instead of fighting coronavirus,” he said.
Referring to PPP’s past tenure, the former president stated that when he came to power in 2008, the country was a victim of terrorism and division. “We conducted the Swat operation through national consensus and brought peace [throughout the country],” the former president asserted.
The PPP and the PTI have been trading barbs over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, after being criticised for the second consecutive day by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Parliament House, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had demanded that the foreign minister either withdraw his statement against PPP or resign from his position.
The foreign minister had earlier addressed a session of the Senate, where he spoke at length about PPP’s style of governance and the participation of the province in national decision-making.
FM Qureshi had said that the PPP was focused on only provincial politics rather than thinking for the entire country. He also said that it was not true that the federal government had abandoned Sindh.
In reaction to Qureshi’s criticism, Bilawal had said that the minister had also accused him of using the “Sindh card”. Bilawal said that he had been raising his voice for issues pertaining to the provinces, without any such intention in mind.
