PTI will win AJK elections: Fawad

Minister says Bilawal, Maryam unaware of Kashmir, Pakistan ties

ABBOTABAD:

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which had already broken “political idols” in Pakistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, would now win the AJK Legislative Assembly elections too.

Addressing party workers here, he said both the political “novices”, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Maryam Safdar, had campaigned for their respective party candidates in the G-B. However, he added that they got frustrated when they realised that their parties had failed to field candidates for many G-B Legislative Assembly seats.

“They were facing the same situation in AJK like G-B where the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) could not find candidates in many constituencies,” he added.
Fawad alleged that both the parties in fact had no political culture as they were being run by two royal families. “One had a ‘Maharani’ and the other a ‘Maharaja’ at the helm of their affairs, who had no respect for their party leaders and even treated their parties’ former prime ministers like ‘slaves’,” the information minister said.

He reiterated that both Bilawal and Maryam, who were in fact busy in their “Abbu Bachao” (save father) campaigns, knew nothing about the “relationship” of Pakistanis and Kashmiris as evident from their speeches.

He reminded the AJK people that it was Maryam Safdar that at her daughter’s marriage ceremony Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the special guest. Likewise, he claimed that Bilawal did not know that Pakistan had fought three wars with India on the Kashmir dispute.

Pakistanis and Kashmiris, he said, “are one nation and no one can separate them. There is no graveyard in Jhelum, Abbottabad and Mansehra where the army personnel martyred (at the Line of Control) were not buried.”

The minister added that when the federal government came to know that an Indian firm had gotten rights of live coverage of Pakistan team cricket matches, it immediately revoked the same representing the sentiments of the nation. “The government decided that no business would be done with any Indian entity,” he added.
He alleged that both Bilawal and Maryam knew nothing as to how to run the national economy, as they had practically done nothing to earn even a single rupee. “They were born with golden spoons in their mouths as their fathers Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif had built empires abroad and purchased palaces for them in major world cities.”

Fawad alleged that for both Zardari and Nawaz, while in power, had looted the national wealth and now they were facing cases and were unable to take part in election campaign.
Fawad vowed that the PTI government would bring back the looted national wealth stashed by the plunderers abroad.

“The PTI came into being as a reaction to the ‘loot and plunder’ of the former ruling parties,” he said, “The party in fact represented the lower and lower middle classes, who were totally neglected by the past rulers.”
The minister claimed that when the PTI came to power in 2018, Pakistan was on the verge of default and it had to take emergency assistance from friendly countries like China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to keep the economy afloat.

He said today the economy was “stable” due to the prudent policies of present government, as record funds had been allocated for development programmes in the current fiscal year. APP