Bilawal challenges PM Imran to dissolve assembly

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday challenged Prime Minister Imran Khan to dissolve the National Assembly and announce snap elections if he was confident that people would vote for him again but added that the "coward" premier would not do so.

Addressing a ceremony in Multan, the Bhutto scion said his party was all set to hold the long march, scheduled for February 27, against the "incompetent" rulers and would take the prime minister head-on after reaching Islamabad.

"Imran Khan has been lecturing us... today, I challenge him that if he's not a coward then dissolve the [National] Assembly and announce the election date... we will not need to carry out the protest march then," he said.

Bilawal noted that the premier would not “dissolve the assembly” and announce snap elections as he was a “coward” and was “not confident of people’s vote”.

“He [PM Imran] knows that the people are fed up with him”.

He said even after three years in power, PM Imran was still “harping on his corruption mantra” and that people had stopped listening to the “same record again and again”.

The PPP chairman was referring to the premier’s speech that he delivered after the launch of Sehat Insaf Card in Faisalabad earlier in the day. PM Imran came down hard on Bilawal for refusing to implement the health card scheme in Sindh.

PPP government in Sindh, the premier said, did not realise in what conditions the people of rural areas are living in, adding that former president, Asif Ali Zardari, was buying off politicians with “stolen wealth”.

While referring to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and Zardari, the premier said he only joined politics to rid the country of these two “corrupt families” as Pakistan had no future till "these people are in power".

He said rule of law and a welfare state were the only ways following which the country could progress, adding that some lawyers, however, wanted Nawaz, who “looted” the country, back in power.

“They want lifetime ban on him (Nawaz) revoked so that he can return to power and plunder it again,” the PM said, adding that states were not destroyed with bombs but “accepting crimes like corruption”.

The prime minister also commented on recent contacts between the opposition parties, saying they were holding meetings because they “are afraid of Imran Khan”. "They know I will put them in jail eventually."

The PPP chairman, while responding to the premier’s scathing attack, said: "They (government) tried to create false [corruption] cases against us but they are yet to prove anything in court”.

“According to Transparency International, Pakistan’s most corrupt government is currently sitting at the Centre,” he added.

Bilawal noted that during the tenure of former army chief General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, “many such cases were created against us but we were innocent then and are innocent now”.

"Benazir Bhutto was declared innocent and the dictator has been declared a criminal by the courts... the people of Pakistan will never forgive Imran Khan," he remarked.

He further said that his party would continue to protest against the "selected" rulers until the people of the country were “relieved from such incompetent people”.