Bilawal promises to achieve goal of long march

KARACHI:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari promised on Thursday the party’s long march on Islamabad next month would weigh heavily on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, and stressed that it would achieve its gaol.

Bilawal chaired a meeting of the PPP Sindh Council via a video link to review the arrangements and preparations for the long march, which would set out on February 27 from the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam. It was decided that the participation of millions of people in the long march would be ensured.

Addressing the meeting, Bilawal said that the PPP had declared war on the PTI government, which he termed an enemy of the people. He added that the long march against “this incompetent government” would start from the Mazar-e-Quaid and culminate in Islamabad to achieve its objectives.

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“The PPP will play the role of real opposition for the solution of the problems of the people. The PPP will expose the incompetent government of the PTI and send it home,” he said. The country is facing a serious crisis and only the PPP will steer it out of the crisis,” he added.

“Only the people and the PPP will be successful this time,” the PPP chairman told the party’s provincial leadership. He emphasised that the party workers and leaders should unite and become one voice by overcoming their differences so that “no one can defeat us”.

He said that injustice had been done to the agriculture sector due to which the farmers are in trouble. Therefore, the PPP will hold a nationwide farmers’ marches on January 21 and January 24 in solidarity with the farmers.

During the meeting, the party leadership invited applications for the party tickets for the upcoming local bodies elections till January 30. Bilawal said that PPP should win the all coming elections, including the local bodies elections and the general elections.

Faryal Talpur, the central president of the PPP Women Wing, said that the people were suffering because of the high cost of living, unemployment and high taxes levied by this government. “The PTI has dropped a bomb on the nation.”

Talpur also referred to a fertilise crisis, saying that the shortage of urea would reduce the wheat crop, which would lead to another food crisis. She added that this government had created such conditions that the people were forced to go on a long march.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP Sindh President Nisar Khuhro said that the long march would start from Karachi and head to Lahore via the Kamoon Shaheed border before reaching Islamabad. He appealed to the masses to participate in the long march.

Khuhro said that the country was not founded so the people burn themselves. “The job of the state is to provide them relief, which the government has failed to provide,” he said. “There is a conspiracy to prevent the PPP from gaining a majority at the Centre through engineered elections,” he charged.

“The PTI won [the 2018 elections] because of the failure of the RTS [Result Transmission System]. Now we will not allow the rigging through EVM [electronic voting machine] or any other conspiracy,” the PPP Sindh president told the meeting.

He added that this PTI government was imposed on the people like torment and now the people would send it packing with force. Referring to the mini-budget, he said that the federal government wanted to suck the blood of the people by imposing taxes worth Rs340 billion.

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“The federal government has failed on every front, therefore, it is necessary to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan and the PTI from power to get the people and the country out of the crisis,” he said, adding: “Millions of people will reach Islamabad and hold the federal government accountable for its atrocities.”

Former Sindh chief minister and senior party leaders Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that PTI was working on the agenda of exterminating the poor. On the occasion, PPP Karachi Division President Saeed Ghani briefed the meeting on the Local Government Act.

Ghani said that the parties, which were protesting against the new law were afraid that PPP would bring its mayors. He warned that even if the protest continued, the local government system of former dictator Pervez Musharraf would not return.

The meeting was attended by also Sarfraz Rajar, Waqar Mehdi, Aajiz Dhamra, Syed Nasir Shah, Sasui Palijo, Noman Sheikh, Lal Chand Ukrani, PPP member of the Sindh Assembly and other party leaders.