Focus on Lahore, Bilawal advises Nawaz

Continuing a verbal onslaught against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and to a lesser extent against its alleged facilitators in the establishment, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari advised Nawaz Sharif to focus on Lahore to get “better results”.

Addressing a news conference in Mithi, in the Thar district, Bilawal vowed to lead his party to election victory on Feb 8, 2024 even without a level-playing field, saying: “The PPP is ready to play on any pitch and we hope that we will win again.”

The PPP chairman said the PPP had always been denied the level-playing field in elections, citing examples of the formation of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) in 1988 and the martyrdom of the late Benazir Bhutto and scores of other party workers before the 2008 general election.

“Still, the Jiyalas fought in such situations and formed governments,” he said, adding that he had no bone to pick with the establishment.

“This is going to be the first election in which the PPP will be contesting while solely looking towards the public for support, without being at fight with any institution.”

Bilawal claimed that same as before, a favourable field “is being tilted in favour of the Nawaz-League (PML-N)”.

Bilawal’s media talk came as PML-N supremo Nawaz visited Balochistan, where a large number of “electables” joined his party.

When asked about the visit, Bilawal said that Nawaz had to travel to another province due to some “misperceived advice”.

“I think Mian Sahib has been advised that since problems have been created in Lahore for the Nawaz-League, so he should try to secure one or two seats in other provinces. Therefore, he himself went to another province,” the PPP chief said.

He suggested his political rival to rather concentrate on Lahore by trying to address the identified problems. “Through this way, he may get better results,” he said. He added that he did not object to any party’s engagements in any province but “one should try to stand on his own two feet”.

He added that the PML-N was welcome to launch its political campaigns in Sindh and Balochistan but with the help of its own party structure.

“I would say, trust your own party and do politics through your own party and do not ask any institution to do politics on your behalf or to create space for you.”

Bilawal also questioned the PML-N’s double standards with reference to Nawaz’s meeting with the leaders of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP).

He wondered how BAP was bad when the PPP shook hands with it in the Senate elections in 2021, and good for the PML-N in 2024 elections.

Bilawal shrugged off any prospects of the PML-N giving some sort of a surprise to the PPP in the coming general elections.

According to him, he closely witnessed the internal working of that party during the 15-month Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government.

“I have never seen such type of politics,” he commented.

He recalled that by-elections were held in some 20 constituencies during their brief stint in the coalition government but the PML-N lost those polls even though they were in power at the Centre and, more importantly, in Punjab.

“I saw they were in power at the Centre and in the provinces and the institutions were with them but they still ran away from an election due to the fear of losing,” he said, adding that they also ran away from even the local government elections out of the same fear.

However, he noted that the fear in question seemed to have disappeared at present and now the PML-N was thinking of giving some surprise to the PPP.

“But the fact is I have seen that this type of politics causes harm and does not do any good in the election.”

He said that he felt proud of his 15 months’ performance as the head of the foreign ministry in the previous government, asking did the then prime minister Shahbaz Sharif and his key cabinet ministers Ishaq Dar, Khurram Dastgir, Ahsan Iqbal, Saad Rafique and Ayaz Sadiq felt the same way.

“Ask them if they are ready to fight the upcoming election on the basis of their 15-16 months’ performance? They will hide their faces,” the PPP chairman charged.

However, despite his verbal jibes, Bilawal stressed his party wanted the politics of polarisation to be done away with.

He said that the politics of hurling abuses and allegations or exacting revenge had neither remained part of his political mentoring nor it could lead Pakistan on the path to progress.

“Only the PPP can ease the prevailing political tensions, and bring stability to the country by taking all political entities along.”

Although Bilawal praised caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar for his reputation and character, he objected to the stoppage of funds for several schemes launched by the previous PPP government in Sindh.

He said ending the government partnership with the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant by “unelected people” not only violated the mandate of the PPP government, but also put at risk the lives and health of thousands of patients receiving free healthcare at the institute.

He also blamed the caretaker government for blocking funds for the reverse osmosis plants in Thar and numerous other ongoing development and other schemes meant for the rehabilitation of the flood-affected people in Sindh.

“If a minister or a bureaucrat is doing something wrong, they shouldn’t think that we will forgive or forget them,” he warned.

About the royalty for the Thar coal project, he said that the funds should be given to the province and spent on the people of Thar.

When his attention was drawn towards a recent statement of senior PPP leader Syed Khursheed Shah, in which he regretted joining the PDM-led government, Bilawal said the PPP’s decision might be “politically wrong” but it was motivated by national interest.

“It was need of the time and the decision was taken in view of the national interest. If political interest was kept in consideration then Shah is right,” he said.

Bilawal first referred to political, economic and democratic crises and then also cited threats to the 18th Amendment and Sindh’s resources and Pakistan’s isolation at the international level as the factors which underpinned the decision.

He said the “powerful people” in Islamabad were unaware of the difficulties facing the common man across the country.

“This is why I believe that a large number of PPP’s legislators should be elected to parliament, because only the PPP feels the pain of the poor masses.”

Zardari’s statement

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Tuesday, former president and PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari shrugged off concerns about emerging alliances aimed at challenging his party's politics in the upcoming general elections, saying that the PPP would secure victories across the nation in the February polls.

Zardari's remarks came as the PML-N in Sindh planned to forge a broad alliance with a number of anti-PPP parties, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan the Grand Democratic Alliance the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and others.