Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said the party has already “shown a way to the whole country to get rid of Prime Minister Imran Khan” when it managed to make former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani win in the Senate polls in March instead of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidate Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.
Addressing a press conference in Sukkur on Monday, a day after the comeback rally of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, he said that if the other opposition parties agreed to “first attack Punjab and then go the national level, then this government will go home”.
If the opposition was serious, then it could pull off “such a big feat, the example of which you won’t find in the democratic system” similar to how it had “defeated the prime minister from his own electoral college” during the Senate polls, he added.
Talking about mass resignations — the issue which led to PPP’s separation from the alliance — the PPP chairperson said the PDM parliamentarians should resign “on principle since we are not together [and] that was their problem”.
The votes of PDM members who were a part of the National Assembly were being “wasted”, he claimed.
Bilawal invited the opposition to support the PPP, stressing that it could “not only give a tough time to the government but also remove it”.
The PPP chairman said that PTI promised to provide 10 million jobs and had instead snatched the livelihoods of the poor people.
He said Imran Khan also promised to construct 5 million homes for the poor adding that PM’s house in Bani Gala was regularized but the houses of the poor in the slumps (Kachi Abadi) were demolished.
Bilawal said that if Imran Khan would have come in the power after winning the election he would have solved the problems of the people.
“Peoples Party has a history of providing jobs to the people, “he said.
While addressing party workers, Bilawal also said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf knows that patwaris and maulana are no threat to its government.
Bilawal said that only PPP is standing firm against the incumbent government as jiyalas know how to face puppets as well as terrorists.
Taking a jibe at PML-N leadership, Bilawal said that if the opposition leader is from PPP, he is sent to jail but if the post is held by someone from Lahore, he continues to enjoy his life.
PPP Chairman Bilawal further said that this is the last government of PTI and soon PPP will form a government and asked party workers to get ready to save the country.
He further said that Peoples Party has always advocated for the rights of farmers, stood with the poor, and offered sacrifices for democracy.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also took a jibe at the opposition alliance’s rally in Karachi a day earlier, saying “maybe the rally would have been more effective if they (PDM) gave women permission to participate.”
Moreover, he said he could not comment on whether the PDM rally — the alliance’s first power show after a months-long lull — was “successful”, adding that the PPP believed all democratic parties should play their role.
However, it would have been “more effective” if the PDM allowed women to participate in the rally, he said.
“This is not Afghanistan. This is Karachi, capital of Sindh,” he remarked.
He questioned how a country and a city could be run when “even a home cannot be run without a woman”, recalling that Pakistan was the first Muslim country to appoint a female prime minister.
No society can progress until men and women are equal participants in the economy and politics, the PPP chairperson said. “Maybe this was a reason that Karachi rejected them (PDM) and that [an] impression could not be built as in the past.”
However, there was “more time” and the PDM would hold more events, he said. “Our best wishes are with them — that the government is harmed from their movement instead of benefitted because till now, we think the government is benefitting from the PDM’s way of [doing] politics.”
He shared that he had asked Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to talk to the PDM President and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and inform them that “we are present if they need anything.”
