LAHORE - On the concluding day of party’s Foundation Day celebrations, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced to make Lahore his political base to conquer Punjab, a province where the PPP has not been able to rule for the last over 39 years.
On Tuesday, he also predicted a bleak future for the ruling PML-N whose leaders, he said, will be either in jail, in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in 2018.
The PPP chairman sought cooperation of people to throw out the Sharifs in the next elections which he thought were not too far away.
He also threatened to go for a long march against the government if it did not concede his four-point charter of demands till December 27.
“Solution to all problems lay in accepting the four points,” he asserted, adding he would form a committee for implementation of his four demands.
“If you people supported me, we will say goodbye to Nawaz Sharif in 2018,” he said while addressing charged party activists and leaders from central Punjab who converged at Bilawal House, Lahore amid the slogans of “Go Nawaz Go”.
Bilawal said it was the last term of Nawaz Sharif in power because his party had failed to fulfil the promises made with the people before 2013 elections.
“It is the time to tell Sharifs that their time is over and this is their last show. Either jail, Saudi Arabia or elsewhere is going to be the next destiny for their crimes,” he added.
He said that the PML-N won 2013 elections pledging to end loadshedding, but it was still there and now electricity tariff had also gone up.
He believed that next elections would be held after six months.
“After December 27, the PPP will chant ‘Go Nawaz Go’ slogan for three months and next three months would be spent on making preparations for the next elections,” he stated.
During the course of his speech, Bilawal repeatedly chanted “Go Nawaz Go slogan” after small intervals.
The PPP chairman said he was not here to participate in politics but for a democratic occupation of Punjab, where remnants of dictator Zia were still ruling since many decades.
Bilawal Bhutto in his speech cast aspersions on the performance of present government. “Every child is born with Rs120,000 debt as Sharif brothers have doubled the international and domestic debt in only three years.“ Agriculture sector has been ruined. Factories are facing shutdown. Exports have steeply declined and unemployment was rising,” he said.
He alleged that Sharif brothers indulged in massive scandals behind the facades of Sasti Roti, Danish Schools and Ashiyana schemes. “Now, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been found involved in world’s biggest Panama scandal but he was trying to hide himself behind a letter from Qatari Prince,” he added.
Bilawal viewed that Nawaz government was carrying out atrocities against women and minorities in Punjab and they have been made 10th class citizen and not the second-class citizen.
He said his party’s foreign policy will be based on the principle of “Strength Through Peace.”
Earlier, addressing the Jiyalas, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan said that taking benefits from a lacuna of PPRA laws, Sharif brothers had awarded huge contracts to foreign companies against hefty commissions. He pointed out that Metro Bus cost in Pakistan was eight times higher than the construction cost of similar Metro services in Indian cities of Amritsar and Ahmedabad.
Aitzaz further alleged that Sharif brothers were ruling since 30 years and they had developed personal relations with world’s richest families and used their influence whenever they were caught to wriggle out from punishments and convictions.
He endorsed the views of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that there were two laws in Pakistan. “When Nawaz Sharif government was dismissed in 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that it cannot be dismissed on corruption charges. However, the same apex court gave opposite ruling in 1997 when PPP government was dismissed on false corruption charges,” he stated.
He said Nawaz Sharif had no guts even to name Kulbhushan Yadav, a serving colonel of Indian navy caught on Pakistani soil for spying.
“Had our colonel been arrested without a passport and visa from Agra, Modi may have put him in a cage behind his podium of his speech on August 15,” Aitzaz said.
Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, leader of the Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah, PPP Central Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira, General Secretary Nadeem Afzal Chan and Information Secretary Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar also addressed the party workers.
Prominent folk singers from Punjab Arif Lohar, Saeen Zahoor and others performed traditional music on the occasion.