PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday said that the people of Sindh will ‘go to Islamabad and snatch back their rights’, a private TV channel reported.
“The prime minister says that Sindh is ‘not our province’. If Sindh is not the prime minister’s province, then whose is it?” Bilawal asked while addressing a public gathering hosted by the PPP in Hyderabad under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement. He said that the people of Sindh will ‘safeguard their rights’ and ‘safeguard democracy’. “We will go to Islamabad and take back our rights,” he said, adding that Sindh will get reduced share of the National Finance Commission Award this year. “Think, if your right was given, the full Rs200bn were given, how much employment we could have provided to the youth of Hyderabad, how many health centres could be set up,” he told the crowd. “This is not Imran Khan’s money, this is the money of the people of Hyderabad and we will go to Islamabad and take back our right from them,” he asserted.
Bilawal once again hit out at the government over inflation and allegedly usurping the rights of provinces, saying Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised a Naya Pakistan “but it turned out to be more expensive Pakistan”. He said farmers in the country are protesting and they are not being paid for produce such as tomatoes and onions because the government preferred to import instead of buying from them. “Imran’s tabdeeli (change) has brought so much inflation, unemployment and poverty in the last year that half of Pakistan’s families have food deficiency,” he said, accusing the government of bringing relief to the rich and causing pain to the poor.
“This is the same government that promised one crore jobs. I ask the people of Hyderabad whether they have gotten even one job from those one crore jobs,” Bilawal said. “This is the same Imran Khan who promised he would build five million houses. Is he not stealing the roof from over people’s houses? Have you been given even one house?” he asked the audience.
PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi lambasted the incumbent government for rising commodity prices and unemployment. “Today, there is only one solution to these problems and PDM has set out with that message,” he said, adding that though the parties in the alliance had different ideologies, they had united on one platform “not for power or any interest, but that the country should be run according to the Constitution”. He said the prices of wheat and sugar had risen and the electricity per unit price rose from Rs13 to Rs25 “because the elections were stolen in 2018”. “The 11 parties in front of you gained 70 per cent of the votes in the last elections despite fraud,” he told the crowd. “All they say is that the country should be run according to the Constitution.”
Addressing the rally, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP) leader Owais Noorani responded to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar’s statement that politicians should not drag the army into politics. “You say don’t drag army into politics, no one dragged you into politics. Please say who dragged Ayub Khan into politics?” Noorani said.
While addressing the rally, National Party President Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said the way the parliament and the constitution were currently being treated should end. “Today, islands of Balochistan and Sindh are being occupied by the Centre. Under what law? They belong to Sindh and Balochistan,” he said, adding that “they” had looted Balochistan’s resources. “Fifty per cent of the Saindak is Chinese, 48pc federal government and only 2pc of Baloch people. Balochistan will get nothing from the drama in the name of Gwadar port.”
Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai said the answer to Pakistan’s prosperity lies in accepting ‘the right of the provinces’ people on their resources’.
