KARACHI: The second public meeting of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) will be held in Karachi on Sunday (today). The Pakistan Peoples’ Party is hosting the public meeting at Bagh-e-Jinnah near the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The central leadership of the opposition alliance would address the public meeting. They include JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PML- N Sr Vice President Maryam Nawaz, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, Maulana Shah Owais Noorani, Allama Sajid Mir, Dr Abdul Malik, Iftikhar Hussain, Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini, and others. Fazlur Rehman has already arrived in the city while the PML-N Maryam Nawaz would reach the city today (Sunday).
The PPP leader Najmi Alam said that 50,000 chairs were placed in the Bagh-e-Jinnah for participants of the public meeting. The flags of all the component political parties of the PDM and welcome banners for its political leaders have also been displayed at the venue. Special arrangements for lighting and sound system have also made at the venue. Around 1,500 workers of the Peoples Party volunteers would regulate the movement of traffic and ensure that the participants duly observe the anti-coronavirus precautions. The public meeting will begin at 4:30 pm. There will be special security arrangements in place for the public meeting. Different routes have been designated for the processions of different political parties for reaching the venue. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari along with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani visited the venue of the public meeting. The PPP chairman was briefed about the arrangements and preparation for the public meeting.
Talking to newsmen on the occasion, the PPP chairman said the PPP would organize a historic public meeting and October 18 would become a memorable day in the history of Pakistan. He said that the parliament and judiciary were not free and the PDM had resolved to continue their struggle till the restoration of the democracy.
Bilawal said that the selected government was unable to run the state and the economy. He said that the first public meeting of the PDM in Gujranwala had sent a clear message that the masses were not willing to let off Imran Khan so easily for making the lives of people miserable. He said that the selected prime minister had robbed the people by inflation and shortages of wheat and sugar. He said we are not looking towards the ‘Umpire’ but are witnessing the hardships of the people who were robbed of their mandate and their fate was handed over to an “incompetent selected leader.” He said the federal government is denying Sindh its due share in the NFC Award and denied funds for the uplift of Karachi. Bilawal said the “selected prime minister and his facilitators” would be held accountable for these crimes. Referring to the PIDA ordinance, he said the federal government tried to take over the islands of Sindh and Balochistan under the garb of development.
Reacting to prime minister's remarks about judiciary, Bilawal said the prime minister thinks he can run the judiciary like his Tiger Force. The people want indiscriminate justice and want to hear the verdicts against Aleema Baji and accountability of the K Electric run by the Abraj Group which is the main sponsor of the PTI. He said we want indiscriminate action against corruption be it by the judiciary or the generals.
The PPP chairman said the speaker of the National Assembly was also part of the puppet regime and he along with the prime minister needed to be sent packing home. He said by rejecting production orders the speaker denied the Leader of Opposition Shahbaz Sharif, the opportunity to speak in the National Assembly which was his constitutional right.
Meanwhile, Bilawal said his struggle for restoration of democracy, supremacy of the Constitution and elected Parliament, protection of basic human rights of the masses would continue despite facing threats from the “selected prime minister”. “It is time to end the self-centered game of selectors and the selected and empower the electors (people) and the elected (people’s representatives) to save the country and its people from further havoc,” he said while paying glowing tributes to the martyrs of the 'Karsaz Carnage' when peoples' rally welcoming Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto upon return from exile was bombed resulting in the martyrdom of 180 PPP workers and injuries to more than 500 others, 13 years ago in Karachi.
Bilawal said all the democratic political parties and their leadership would be gathering in Karachi today (Sunday) to pay tributes to their supreme sacrifices of laying down lives for the cause of democracy during the battle against dictatorship.
The PPP chairman said Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is an alliance of all the democratic political parties gathered to get rid of all the evils associated with the destruction of democracy, economy and foreign policy. He said his party workers embraced martyrdom for restoration of democracy, supremacy of the constitution and elected Parliament, protection of basic human rights of the masses. “The struggle still continues despite umpteenth sacrifices in the form of falling victims to terrorist attacks, fabricated cases, arbitrary arrests and now facing open threats from the selected prime minister,” he added.
Earlier, the Sindh government spokesperson Barrister Murtaza Wahab declared that the Pakistan Democratic Movement's rally in Karachi would be a public referendum, saying the case of 22 crore people of Pakistan will be fought on streets.
Addressing a news conference, Wahab said the sane people of Pakistan will announce their verdict against the incumbent regime on Sunday (today). The laborers and the poor are being exploited, unemployment is increasing in the country and people have been crushed by inflation.
The PPP Co chairman Asif Ali Zardari was neither worried by cases against him in the past nor will he be distressed now. The PDM’s fight is continuing for the survival democracy, he said and added the statements of Sheikh Rashid should not be taken seriously who should pay more attention to the railways which has gone from bad to worse in the last two years.
Separately, speaking Saeed Ghani said that popularity of the Peoples’ Party is on the rise as the former legislators belonging to different political parties were joining the PPP and the trend would continue. He said with this trend the PPP would further be strengthened and the next elected mayor of Karachi would be from their party.
He said that the Peoples Party would host even a bigger public meeting of PDM in Karachi (today) than that of Gujranwala. He said the PDM’s second public meeting would further upset the PTI’s federal government which had failed to provide any relief to the masses. Ghani said that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had on Friday led a massive public rally from Lalamusa to Gujranwala proving that the PPP was very much alive in Punjab.
Speaking on the occasion, Sindh Information and Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said that politicians from other political parties joining the Peoples Party showed that the PPP was immensely popular among the masses.
PPP Sindh General Secretary Waqar Mehdi said that the provincial ministers and lawmakers of PPP in Sindh would not hesitate to resign from their offices in line with the decision of the PDM whenever the party leadership would ask them to do so. But it is likely that the rulers would step down before December this year and the need for the resignations never arises.
