Bilawal again fires broadside at PM Imran

Holds premier responsible for spread of Covid-19 in country

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto has once again launched a tirade against Prime Minister Imran Khan and held the premier responsible for the spread of Covid-19 in the country.

“Due to the wrong decisions taken by Imran Khan, the coronavirus situation in the country has gone out of control,” he said.

“It is surprising that despite so many deaths, the premier remains stubborn for not imposing lockdown,” he added.

“The premier ignored the warning of the World Health Organisation (WHO) too.”

Bilawal made these remarks in a telephonic conversation with senior PPP leaders on Thursday.

He asked the prime minister to pay heed to the advice of the world health body or doctors on lockdown if he did not want to listen to the opposition.

He remarked that the health and agriculture sectors were neglected in the budget which posed a serious threat to the country.

The PPP chairperson claimed that a few statements of the premier proved that he was not aware of the NFC (National Finance Commission) award.

“If the administrative head of a country is unaware of the importance of the distribution of resources among provinces, how will the country run?” he questioned.

He lamented that the premier had equated the constitutional powers of a chief minister with that of a dictator’s authority.

“The statements of Imran Khan against the 18th Constitutional Amendment are worrisome and are an attack on the constitution of the country,” he said.

During his visit to Sindh on Wednesday, the premier had said that he had no objection to the 18th Amendment nor was he against it but several things had been included in that reform in haste which needed to be “reviewed and fixed”.

He further said that it was not serving the purpose it was supposed to achieve as it originally aimed at controlling financial imbalances and equally managing financial resources of the provinces to meet their liabilities while alleviating horizontal fiscal imbalances.

Commenting on the locust attacks, Bilawal stated that the prime minister would be responsible for the destruction if the country faced famine due to the locust swarms.

He urged the PPP leaders to expose the “incompetence” of the government before the parliament and people and stated that soon an all parties conference will be called on the “anti-people budget” and current political situation in the country.

Bilawal held telephonic conversation with senior PPP leaders including Nayyar Bukhari, Farhatullah Babar, Sherry Rehman, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Raza Rabbani.