ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari that only the PPP can chase the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf-led government out of power.
He said the PPP will proceed to Bani Gala after winning the elections in Azad Jammu Kashmir. Addressing a huge public gathering at Abbaspur in connection with the AJK election campaign of his party, he said that some people on television say that the PPP was finished but they can see here in Abbaspur where the people are raising Jeay Bhutto slogans.
“Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto struggled shoulder to shoulder with the Kashmiri people,” he said.
Bilawal said that the AJK elections were very important and the Jiyalas will send a message on both sides of the border that ‘Kashmir Pe Soda, Na Manzoor (compromise on Kashmir unacceptable)”.
“Whatever tyranny is happening in occupied Kashmir cannot be tolerated by the people of Azad Kashmir. We are not the ones who pray for Modi’s win nor do we invite Modi to our weddings. The worst tyranny happens in occupied Kashmir and Imran Khan is helpless. We are Jiyalas whose leader had said that if need be we will fight for Kashmir for thousand years and the leader who had said that where the Kashmiri sweats, we will shed our blood. We cannot remain silent over Imran Khan’s response,” he said.
Bilawal said renaming Kashmir Highway as Srinagar Highway and changing our own map with a pen was not enough. “We will have to take a clear stance with the Kashmiri people. The Kashmiri people will take their own decisions. If the Kashmiri people say that they want peace then there will be peace and if they want war then there will be a war. Islamabad and Delhi will have to accept the decision of Kashmiri people. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s slogan was for plebiscite,” he added.
Bilawal said that Imran Khan had pushed the country into an economic crisis. The real face of Imran Khan’s change is historic poverty, price hike and unemployment.
“We have greater poverty, price hike and unemployment than India, Bangladesh and even war torn Afghanistan. He had promised one crore jobs and 50 lac houses but he has made millions unemployed and homeless. The PPP has always brought economic prosperity. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave lands to landless and Benazir provided jobs. She started the Lady Health Workers programme. Asif Ali Zardari initiated Benazir Income Support Programme.
He also increased salaries by 120 percent, pensions by 100 percent and for the soldiers fighting terrorism by 175 percent. On 25th July the Jiyala Prime Minister will be elected and his first measure will be to increase salaries and pensions,” the PPP chief said.
He said that the PPP confronted Prime Minister, Imran Khan for the last three years on every front. From the first day “we exposed him and called him by his real name “Selected” and he himself thumped the desk.
He added: “After that Imran Khan never came to the parliament to hear my speech because he was afraid that he will again thump the desk. We also forgot the bitterness of the past and made an alliance with our political opponents against Imran Khan. We went to prison to meet them but we should have listened to you people because they did not want to dislodge Imran Khan or Buzdar.”
He said the PPP will chase out Imran Khan and Buzdar with the Jiyalas despite the anti-democratic forces siding with them. “They wanted to leave the space for Imran Khan but we convinced them to participate in bye-elections and we defeated the puppet from KP to Pishin and from Karachi to Punjab. We defeated Imran Khan to sixth position in Karachi but our friends in opposition started fighting with us. We will not give an inch of space to Imran Khan. We defeated Imran Khan in his own constituency in national assembly and wanted to give him tough time in the budget session but our friends in opposition were absent,” he said.
He hoped that Pakistan Democratic Movement leaders Shahbaz Sharif and Maulana Fazlur Rehman will issue show cause notices to their absent members.