The opposition parties stepped up the pressure on the PTI-led federal government with a massive power show in Karachi, the second under the banner of their alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) after the one in Gujranwala, their leaders in their fiery speeches striking at the current regime’s weak spots – rising prices, crumbling blues and lapses in governance.
The PDM rally at Bagh-e-Jinnah adjacent to Quaid's mausoleum drew thousands of opposition activists and supporters, mostly those belonging to the PPP as the party, which is in power in Sindh, hosted the event in the economic hub of the country.
The participants of the gathering waved flags of their respective parties and PPP’s die-hard supporters danced to the party’s popular theme song.
Addressing the charged crowd, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari fired a salvo at the PTI government for trying to “occupy” the islands of Sindh and Balochistan by promulgating the Pakistan Islands Development Authority Ordinance – an issue that resonates with the people of Sindh.
The PPP chairman reiterated his demand that the ordinance be withdrawn and also urged his party’s senators to pass a resolution against it the next session of the upper house of parliament on Wednesday.
“These islands can’t be sold as they belong to Karachi’s fishermen, who earn their livelihood from them,” he added.
The scion of the Bhutto dynasty accused the federal government of hatching conspiracies to separate Karachi from Sindh.
“Attempts are being made to snatch the rights of the people of Sindh and Rs300 billion were not given to the province under the NFC award,” he maintained.
The PPP chief also alleged that Prime Minister Imran Khan had “betrayed” Karachi.
He claimed that of the amount of Rs1.1 trillion that the premier had announced for the city, Rs300 billion was from Sindh’s Annual Development Programme and Rs100 billion from the ongoing projects from the tenures of former president Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Bilawal paid tribute to the martyrs of the Karsaz bombing on its 13th anniversary, saying that they had sacrificed their lives to “write a new chapter in the country’s history”.
"I am not afraid of bombs, I will be with my people," he said, referring to the 2007 attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's homecoming rally.
The PPP chairman said his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mother Benzair had sacrificed their lives to strengthen the democracy in the country. “We have to fight a war for the supremacy of law, democracy and Constitution.”
Bilawal said the opposition’s struggle was not for power but to ensure the right of the masses via real democratic system.
“All those doors are being closed through which rights of the masses can be ensured,” he added.
He said in the absence of democracy, decisions were being made to protect the interest of a few people.
Bilawal alleged that the “selected” prime minister was unaware of the issues being faced by masses including historic inflation and rising poverty.
“Neither does Prime Minister Imran acknowledge the parliament, nor can he see the hunger and tears of the people.”
The PPP chairman also maintained that the PTI government’s policies had weakened Pakistan’s position on the issue of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz while addressing the rally lashed out at the Prime Minister Imran Khan for his speech a day earlier wherein he had mocked her by calling her a grandmother. “
I am thankful to Allah that I am not a grandmother of only one child but of two,” she said, adding that being a grandmother was matter of great pride for her.
“At least have the decency to respect the prime minister's office that you hold...look at the way you conduct yourself.”
Responding to PM Imran’s remarks that he would deal more sternly with the opposition and ensure that Sharif was brought back to the country, Maryam claimed that the premier’s statement reflected his fear and sense of defeat.
“You could tell how one jalsa of ours [Gujranwala rally] made Imran Khan shudder in his speech yesterday,” she said.
“Imran Khan has panicked after the first PDM rally which was clearly visible on his face,” she added, advising the premier to learn how to react during difficult time from her father Sharif. “When he [Imran Khan] staged a sit in Islamabad, Nawaz Sharif did not panic for once and dealt with him comfortably.”
She also said PDM’s struggle was not against the PM Imran-led government. “You have nothing to do in the fight of elders. You are selected prime minister just working on salary…”
Responding to allegations that her father was speaking Indian Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s language, Maryam said: “You [PM Imran] prayed for the success of Modi [in elections], passed an ordinance to help Kulbhushan [Indian spy] and compromised on the issue of Kashmir.”
The PML-N leader asked PM Imran to stop dragging army into “dirty politics” and stop being a spokesperson for the military.
“My party salutes the Pakistan Army and those officers and soldiers who act within their constitutional limits.”
Maryam expressed gratitude to the PPP leadership for giving her historic welcome in the provincial capital, saying: “I did not find any difference between the streets of Lahore and Karachi”.
The PML-N leader said Bilawal respected her like an elder sister and they would always respect each other despite any differences between them.
"Let us make a promise Bilawal that we will fight in the political battleground, and not against each other," she added.
“When I came to Karachi... I remembered Benazir Bhutto. I just met her once and she spent three hours with me and treated me as a mother would in that time. I will never forget her kindness,” the PML-N vice president recalled.
Taking to the stage, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman ridiculed Prime Minister Imran Khan over his Saturday’s speech, saying “he [PM] always makes a blunder whenever he speaks”.
The firebrand cleric, who is the president of the PDM, said for the last two years, opposition parties had been forced to accept the PTI-led government which had come to power through “unprecedented rigging in 2018 elections”.
The Maulana said the PDM’s prime objective was to restore genuine democracy in the country and it would not backtrack from this principled stance.
“Come what may we will not accept this government but will make those who brought this selected prime minister into power realise their mistake,” he added.
“Pakistan in incomplete without us… Pakistan and its economy can only prosper when all of its institutions work within their constitutional ambit,” Fazl said, adding that no constitutional amendments against the provincial autonomy would be accepted by the opposition parties.
Addressing the rally, Balochistan National Party (BNP) chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal, who quit the ruling coalition earlier this year, said the example of the “so-called democratic system” prevailing in Pakistan was nowhere to be found in the world.
“Under this ‘democracy’, elected prime ministers of Pakistan are sentenced to death or banished from the country,” he added.
Mengal alleged that efforts are being made to occupy the islands of Sindh and Balochistan, saying “no one would be allowed to invade our resources”.
Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai in his speech maintained that the PDM had set out to make a new Pakistan – one envisioned by the country’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
He added that Pakistan was meant to be a state where there was justice, the power vested with parliament and the Constitution was supreme.
The PkMAP chief said that the opposition alliance did not seek to disrespect the country’s forces.
“We are not mad. We only want them to stay remain within their constitutional ambit.”
Ameer Haider Khan Hoti of the ANP hit out at the government for the rising prices of food items and other necessities of life.
He asked the prime minister if he was aware of how the poor were making ends meet amid the increasing prices of food and medicines and the electricity tariff hike.
Hoti refuted the prime minister’s claim that the opposition alliance wanted an NRO. “The entire PTI will need an NRO when the decision in the foreign funding case [against the ruling party] is announced.”
The ANP leader further said the PDM wanted solutions to problems like the economy, the NFC award, protection of the 18th amendment and the Constitution, powers of institutions, and above all the supremacy of parliament.
Former Balochistan chief minister and leader of National Party, Abdul Malik Baloch called upon the government to resolve the matters of restive province through dialogue with the armed groups.
In his speech, Baloch demanded that the enforced disappearances of innocent people should be stopped immediately. He also urged the PTI-led government to immediately withdraw ordinance related to islands near Karachi’s shore.
Addressing the rally, MNA and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader Mohsin Dawar described the PDM as the dawn of real democracy and civilian supremacy in the country.
He accused the PTI-led government of implicating political activists in fake cases and termed its tenure as "worse than a dictatorship".
“To run a state, you must make the people realise that they its citizens, not its slaves,” he said.
The MNA proposed setting up a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate into the allegations levelled by Sharif.
Dawar participated in the rally along with PTM activists and supporters on the invitation of the PPP chairman. He had not attended the PDM rally in Gujranwala.
The crowd had thinned out by the time Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the head of the 11-party Pakistan Democratic Movement, addressed the public gathering in Karachi around midnight. The barricaded enclosure for women was the first to empty, right after PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari's speech.
According to Karachi police, over 3,700 cops were deployed for the security of the rally.
Earlier, having landed in Karachi at quarter past noon, Maryam reached the Quaid-e-Azam's mausoleum along with a huge crowd of party supporters four hours later.
PML-N activists and supporters accompanied her convoy in the form of a rally that slowly made its way towards the mausoleum from the Karachi airport.
The PML-N leader offered fateha at the Quaid's grave before she made her way to the venue of the rally.
Maryam was accompanied by senior party leaders including party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and her husband Capt (retd) Safdar.
As a goodwill gesture, the PML-N vice president was welcomed by the PPP with large panaflex posters of her and her father's pictures along the route of her rally.
The PML-N leader left for Karachi from Lahore earlier in the morning. Responding to media personnel's questions regarding Prime Minister Imran Khan's reaction to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif's speech at the Gujranwala showdown, on her way to the Lahore airport from Jati Umra, Maryam said, "It was a speech of a person who had lost. Mian Nawaz Sharif did not even address the prime minister; he had said this 'game' is above you [PM Imran] and you should stay out of it".
In response to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led federal government's dismissal of the event as a 'failed show of power', the PML-N vice president said, "The government is unable to see things right now, but it will all be clear to them in a few days".
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi while talking to media in Karachi said that the voice of Gujranwala was heard in PDM’s first rally, "and you will hear Karachi’s voice too today".
Abbasi added that soon the whole of Pakistan will be on one page regarding this government's failure.
“This government has made everyone miserable because of inflation,” the former PM said, adding that the only way forward was that people are able to voice their opinions and are respected.
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