KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Sunday has felicitated his party workers on winning the by-election in National Assembly (NA) constituency NA-249 Karachi again after the vote recount.
In a post on the social-networking website Twitter, the PPP leader said, “After the recount we’ve expanded our lead to over 900+ votes.”
False accusations have been exposed and the truth has prevailed. People of Karachi have rejected selected and placed their hopes in PPP, he added.
After a recount of votes polled across all 276 stations, Mandokhail got 15,656 votes, whereas PML-N candidate Miftah Ismail secured 14,747. This means that the PPP candidate was ahead of the second-placed Mistah Ismail by a margin of 909 votes.
When the unofficial by-poll results were first announced, Mandokhail won with 16,156 votes, whereas Ismail came in second with 15,473, resulting in a difference of 683 votes.
The low margin of votes had prompted Ismail to petition the ECP to hold a recount. The ECP, accepting Ismail’s application for a hearing, issued a stay order, withholding the results of the by-poll.
Separately, Bilawal hit hard on Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for showing insensitivity towards rising inflation and ensuing poverty in the country.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Bilawal said that the rate of poverty was dangerously on the rise. He said that with a 30 per cent rise in the poverty rate, 80.5 million people are standing on the edge of the poverty line. He added that daily 15 to 20 people are ending their lives by committing suicide due to poverty.
Bilawal asked Prime Minister Imran to come out of his dream world and assess the ground realities. He said that for a common man life, has become very hard. He said that the government has again raised the power tariff to extract Rs90 billion from the pockets of poor people.
He posed a question if the inflation rate exceeds 14 per cent, how a common man would survive? He said that medicine prices in Pakistan have increased 100 per cent adding that no one cares about the poor man.
Bilawal maintained the government makes amnesty schemes for “elite” and “langar khanas” for the poor. He told the prime minister that this will not work.
The PPP chairman said that if rumours of 20 per cent retrenchment in the industrial sector after Eid turned out to be true then the situation would become more difficult.
He said that the premier always blamed corruption being the main reason behind the country’s bad economic situation, while it is in fact his anti-people thinking that has economically destroyed Pakistan.
