Chairman Pakistan People’s Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that his party after coming into power will connect Thar-Karachi through railway track, will fight poverty and unemployment. Masses are still in the grip of tsunami of inflation, he added.
Addressing a press conference in Mithi on Tuesday, he said the PPP had never enjoyed a level playing field and a particular “pitch” was being prepared currently but his party was still ready to play on every kind of pitch.
Bilawal described his party’s backing of the Pakistan Democratic Movement as a “necessity of the time”, underscoring that the decision was made in the “national interest”.
He asserted that the choice to support the PDM would have been different if solely driven by political interests.
Bilawal Bhutto said that Pakistan Muslim League-N supremo Nawaz Sharif instead of attempts to make inroads in Sindh and Balochistan should stay in Punjab and focus on resolving the issues of people of province there.
He said that the PML-N should do politics on its own and should not ask any “institution” to do that on the party’s behalf. Would those who couldn’t win by-elections in Punjab give a surprise to the PPP,” he questioned.
The PPP chairman said that the caretaker setup was responsible for organising general elections and continuing with the policies set by the pervious coalition. “We were pushed into one crisis after another during the past five years, he remarked.
He called for a maximum number of PPP candidates in the upcoming elections, because, he added, it was a people-friendly party. Thar had witnessed a 50 per cent decrease in child mortality due to the steps taken by the PPP government, Bilawal noted.
The decision to be part of the government along with the PDM was taken in national, not political, interest, he recalled and said that they would try to form a government after elections.
Bilawal Bhutto claimed that his party was way ahead of both the PML-N and the PTI in performance. The PPP could deliver, he told reporters and added the PPP would fulfill the promise of Roti, Kapra and Makan [Food, Clothing and Shelter] – the famous slogan that enabled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to win the 1970 general elections, the first in Pakistan’s history.
He said the Centre had stopped releasing the funds [under the National Finance Commission Award] and other heads, hindering the development projects and rehabilitation of flood affectees in the province.
Citing the example of social welfare initiatives, especially designed for the people of Thar, including the stipend for children – from their birth till the age of three, he said that the Sindh government was supposed to provide the money in collaboration with the Centre.
