Pakistan People’s Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Saturday that Prime Minister Imran Khan should step down so that there will be no need for opposition’s protest and no-confidence motion.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi on Saturday, he said that his party’s long march will reach Lahore on March 5 and will reach Gujranwala on March 6, while the last phase of march will start from March 8.
Bilawal said that the life of common man has become a hell and inflation, poverty has increased historically, adding that the PPP will fight for the rights of the people.
He said Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be given their due rights and the provinces have been deprived of NFC awards.
Bilawal said his party was ready to back PML-N’s candidate for the prime minister’s slot if the Opposition is able to oust the incumbent government.
In a press conference alongside party leaders in the port city, Bilawal said in a democracy, anyone having the majority can decide who becomes the next prime minister.
“PML-N clearly has the majority; PPP and other Opposition parties are ready to sacrifice the prime minister’s seat for them,” the PPP chairman said, stressing the major stakeholder should announce its candidate for the office.
“We plan on not repeating the mistakes we did in the past,” he added. Bilawal said that his party has decided to launch a “democratic attack” against the government and urged the other Opposition parties to adopt a unified stance of ousting the incumbent PTI-led administration.
The PPP chairman ruled out opting for undemocratic tactics to achieve the goal of dismissing the government. Bilawal also advised PTI’s allies, especially the MQM-P, to join hands with the anti-government movement as the PPP is all set to begin its “awami march” today from Karachi to Islamabad.
“However, if Prime Minister Imran Khan decides to resign voluntarily, then there won’t be a need to hold the long march,” Bilawal said.
Speaking about PTI’s Sindh Huqooq March, Bilawal said that the PTI leaders say that they have come out for the rights of the people of the province and hence, kick-started their march from Ghotki; however, they are the ones who did not give the farmers their due share of urea.
“The people of Sindh will respond accordingly,” he said. Terming the march as a “political circus” he said that PPP has no threat from “a group of political orphans” gathered in Sindh.
He said that the Prime Minister who has been imposed on the country has no legal justification. He was selected through rigging and he is a Prime Minister whose three years of puppet rule have been followed by the funeral of democracy, and the drowning of the economy. The economic, human and democratic rights of the people have been robbed. Khan Sahib has wreaked havoc on everything he has touched in the name of change. Be it foreign policy, be it society, be it politics, be it governance, be it security matters.
He further said that we want Pakistan to come out of this deal and make a new deal which is in the interest of the country. He said that every promise of Khan Sahib turned out to be false, Imran Khan has taken U-turns on every commitment.
“This government is undemocratic, but we have taken up democratic arms against it,” said Chairman PPP. “The Long March is a democratic attack on this undemocratic government.”
“I don’t want the 2018 election to be replayed again,” he said. “Imran Khan wants to rig the election, that’s why he’s using tactics such as the PECA ordinance.
“We demand that all institutions remain neutral. He said that we hope that if the establishment is neutral then Imran Khan will be defeated in the no-confidence motion. We hope that all the institutions will remain neutral as per the constitution,” he added.
“Our long march will be peaceful, we believe in democracy,” said Chairman PPP. “I wonder what the gang of political orphans is protesting against. We should be told who has robbed all the rights of Sindh including gas and water.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan People’s Party will kick-start its long march today to be led by party’s Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The march which starts from Karachi on Feb 27 will culminate at Islamabad on March 8. Bilawal will stay with the participants throughout the march and he would spend his nights in a container.
