Firing a broadside: Bilawal calls Nawaz the establishment’s favourite

Says govt pressing institutions to save itself from Panamagate probe

QUETTA: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family have always practised politics while sitting in the lap of the establishment.

“The government is pressing the institutions to save itself from the Panamagate joint investigation team’s probe,” said Bilawal while addressing a public gathering during an Iftar party hosted in his honour by PPP Quetta President Ali Madad Jattak on Tuesday.

He said the resources of the coast of Balochistan were being used, but development was taking place elsewhere in the country, adding that the PPP had always healed the wounds of the people of Balochistan.



“Nawaz Sharif always claims that development is taking place in Balochistan, but no such thing is visible in the province,” he said, adding that the people of Balochistan were poorer than those in the rest of the country due to unavailability of potable water, roads and proper education in the province.

Insisting that the people of Balochistan were not born ill-fated and deserved development, the PPP chairman said the ruling party policymakers had not learnt a single lesson from the past.

He said they had always kept a handful of chieftains in the government to serve their own interests which had resulted in violation of the rights of the masses, leading them to insurgency.



“Former dictator Musharraf not only carried out atrocities in Balochistan, but also damaged the entire country,” he alleged, adding that it was during his tenure that his mother Benazir Bhutto was martyred.

Bilawal said that former president Asif Ali Zardari apologised to the people of Balochistan for the past mistakes and introduced a Balochistan package while giving them the authority over their resources by getting the 18th Amendment passed.

He said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was Zardari’s project, adding that he had laid the basis of the scheme by taking Gwadar back from the Port of Singapore Authority and giving it to China.



He said that Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa should have the larger chunks of share in the CPEC, warning that if they were not given their due share in the project, India would get a room to interfere in the affairs of Balochistan.

“People of this province are being allured by anti-Pakistan forces,” said the young PPP leader, asking the rulers if they did not award the rights to the masses, how the poverty would be eradicated.

Towards the end, he announced mass contacts with party workers at the divisional level.