Bilawal claims PPP outperformed other major parties

Says his party excelled in health sectors

HYDERABAD: People must judge the three mainstream parties on their performance ahead of the general elections this year, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Friday.

Speaking at a large gathering outside Syed Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical and Health Sciences at Sehwan in Jamshoro district, he said: “People must decide whether they want metro [buses] of Punjab, trees of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or free medical care of hospitals in Sindh.”

Earlier, he inaugurated the fourth satellite centre of National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases which was set up at the institute.



He said that over the past five years, Sindh government had focused on providing better health facilities while the PML-N preoccupied itself with GT Road politics.

Comparing health facilities in Sindh and Punjab, he said that his party excelled in this regard.

“Shehbaz Sharif (the chief minister of Punjab) inaugurated just one unfinished hospital in Lahore. I congratulate him and want to assure that the PPP’s government will complete the incomplete project.” Bilawal also assured the people of Punjab that if elected to power, the PPP's government would build hospitals in all districts of the province.

Acknowledging that developing infrastructure was the government’s responsibility, he said that human development was equally important.



Criticising the formation of the Grand Democratic Alliance, a set of groups aligned to oppose the PPP in Sindh, he described it as a cabal of political orphans.

“Three former chief ministers [of Sindh], many [former] ministers and advisers and nationalist leaders are part of it. Can they tell what they did for the people of Sindh when they were in power?” he asked.

The PPP chairman maintained that the people were sure to find his party’s name on plaques of all development project set up across Sindh. “You will see PPP everywhere.”

Reminding the people that terrorists had struck the shrine of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar on February 16 last year in which 93 people had been killed and 350 were injured, he deplored that his political rivals indulged in political point scoring even over that tragedy.

In the attack's aftermath, the provincial government was raked against the coals for failing to provide timely medical treatment to the injured at the Sehwan hospital and failed to save more lives.



“I want to tell my opponents that while trying to bring us down they shouldn’t stoop so low that they start acting as enemies of Sindh.”

He cited Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) and Sindh Rural Support Organization's poverty alleviation project, which according official data, benefited 600,000 people.

He praised the NICVD team for transforming its services during the past three years, becoming the largest cardiac care provider in South Asia

Four more satellite centers of the institute would soon be opened in Sukkur, Nawabshah, Khairpur and Tharparkar districts in addition to the existing centers in Larkana, Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan and Sehwan, Bilawal said.

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah said despite a shortage funds, the provincial government was serving the people of the province

“On the basis of Sindh government’s performance, the PPP will form the (next) government in Pakistan after the general elections.”

Earlier, Bilawal visited the Qalandar’s shrine along with the chief minister of Sindh and his cabinet members.