LAHORE    -  PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday said that the PTI government was using state institutions as political props.

While addressing a press conference in Karachi, Bilawal criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan for reiterating that all state institutions, including the army, stand by him.

“I believe that Imran Khan should not use institutions, especially the army, as political props. He keeps saying ‘this institution is with me, that institution is with me’ everywhere. These institutions do not belong to a political party, they are Pakistan’s institutions,” the PPP chief said. 

Earlier, Bilawal warned the government that several options for the opposition’s anti-government campaign are on the cards, including resignation from the parliament.

He said that his party had been criticising the government since day one and its facilitators. He said that political parties could no longer raise their voices in the “rubber stamp” parliament. Bilawal warned the government that “those who were not afraid of dictators will not be afraid of a cricketer.”

“The media is stopped [from criticising the government] and our interviews are censored,” he said. “Insha’Allah, all opposition parties, together, will put an end to this inept government.” The PPP chairman said that the country was failing on all fronts, including foreign and economic policy, as a “selected” government had been imposed on Pakistan.

Bilawal said that the incumbent government had gone so far in their “revenge policy that they filed sedition charges” against Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider. “The country can no longer bear the burden of this government.”

This government does not distribute the NFC award in a just manner, and that causes damage to the health sector, education sector, local governments, among others. The PPP chairman said that the people were helpless due to the current regime’s policies. “Such an authoritarian regime cannot last, their countdown has begun.”

Bilawal, responding to the federal government’s Pakistan Island Development Authority Ordinance, said: “No Pakistani who believes in the Constitution can tolerate that someone, through a presidential ordinance, overnight, tries to take over the islands of Balochistan and Sindh.” “We strongly condemn this act,” Bilawal said. The PPP chairman demanded that the government withdraw this “unconstitutional” ordinance. “Through such immature acts of a cricketer, the federation is damaged.”