PTI staging resignations drama: Bilawal

KARACHI: Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Wednesday said the PTI was staging the resignations drama and claimed that its lawmakers in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies would never resign.

Bilawal was addressing a big public meeting at the Nishtar Park here that was organised to mark the 55th birth anniversary of party.

The PPP chairman said the PTI MNAs who had earlier tendered their resignations were still drawing their salaries.

Bilawal’s speech was broadcast live and seen at various district-level public gatherings of the PPP in the country to celebrate the party’s foundation day.

Bilawal said it was their democratic right to elect the next mayor of Karachi and they would continue to serve the provincial capital and resolve its problems after the mayor’s election.

He maintained that the puppet and selected politicians in the country had become upset due to the stance of state institutions that from now onwards they would stay away from politics. He said the selected politicians had become afraid after sensing that their politics would stand nowhere after the state institutions became neutral in politics.

Bilawal drew the attention of the media that the historical Nishtar Park of Karachi was filled with activists and followers of the PPP belonging to Karachi and predicted that the next mayor of the city would also be a die-hard activist of the Peoples Party.

He mentioned that the PPP had recently secured victories in the local government elections in Azad Kashmir, which were held right under Imran Khan’s nose. He said the PPP had done a struggle against the regimes of three military dictators in the country.

He told the large gathering that for the first time in the country’s history, a prime minister had been sent packing through a no-confidence motion credit for which went to the PPP activists who had earlier taken part in a peaceful long march from Karachi to Islamabad and didn’t throw a single stone.

He lamented that Imran Khan wanted to give credit to the White House for his ouster from power instead of acknowledging the hard work of the PPP activists who sent him packing.

Bilawal said he never did politics on sensitive issues like relations with the US and negotiations with the IMF nor will he do such kind of politics in future. He said the PPP will change the fate of the country with the support of the people.

Bilawal said his party always rejected the politics of hatred, anarchy, and division of the nation. “The PPP is the only federal political party in the country that believes in the politics of hope, unity, and solidarity of the nation. The PPP leadership served the people for 55 years.”

Bilawal said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto freed 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (PoWs) from the captivity of the enemy with his wisdom, political insight, and diplomacy and also retrieved over 5,000 square kilometers of land from the enemy.

“Today, black gold (Thar coal) is coming out of this land, and the industries of Faisalabad are running on the electricity generated from it. Besides, today if Pakistan is a nuclear power in the world, it is because of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,” he said.

He said Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave the first unanimous constitution to the country, gave rights to people and the right to vote and passport to common man, protected economic rights of poor, made landless farmers owner of land, and empowered workers to form unions.

He said today’s youth did not know that it was Bhutto who gave rights to the youth for the first time in the country. As the PM, Bhutto used to take the opinion of student unions on his foreign policy.

“We need a leader like Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who embraced martyrdom, but did not reverse his stance,” he said.

Paying tribute to the former chairperson of the party Benazir Bhutto, he said the Daughter of the East had witnessed the martyrdom of her father and brothers, and the torture and imprisonment of her mother and herself. However, he said, she did not do the politics of hatred and anarchy.

Bilawal said that the bravery of Benazir Bhutto was on one side and the bravery of all the male politicians of the country was on the other side.

He said despite threats to her life, Benazir Bhutto returned to the country and despite Pakistan’s biggest terrorist attack on her caravan in Karsaz, she continued to visit every nook and corner of the country and stood like a giant in Rawalpindi to challenge dictators and terrorists and embraced martyrdom.

He said the government formed under the leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari restored democracy and the 1973 constitution in the country, sent Musharraf packing, gave provincial autonomy and NFC awards, and fulfilled the promise of Roti, Kapra Aur Makaan.

He said when he was entering politics, there was a conspiracy to limit the PPP to one province and eliminate it, as well as to establish the rule of selected people in the country.