Farewell ‘reconciliation’: Bilawal Bhutto fires broadside at PML-N

Says Pakistan has been handed over to sympathisers of terrorists

LAHORE:

Pakistan Peoples Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has launched a frontal verbal attack on the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in its bastion accusing it of reneging on all the promises it had made during its campaign for the 2013 parliamentary elections.

“Shahbaz Sharif had promised that if his party was voted to power, it would put an end to the chronic power crisis within three months,” the scion of the Bhutto family said. “Over two years have passed since they [PML-N] had been voted to power, but the country is still plagued by load-shedding.”

Addressing PPP workers at Bilawal House in Lahore, Bilawal said Rs480 billion had been given to independent power producers, who, he alleged, were either friends or relatives of PML-N’s bigwigs. Initially, the cost of the Nandipur Power project was Rs22 billion but it remains non-functional even after spending Rs81 billion, he added.

“[In spite of that] the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency have not taken any action – are they asleep?” said the chairman of the PPP – the party that rules in Sindh where the two institutions have been hunting down corrupt government officials.

Pakistan has been handed over to worshippers of dictators and sympathisers of terrorists while the enemy [India] is killing innocent citizens on the borders, Bilawal said. “The enemy of Pakistan, its labourers, its farmers and Kashmir is the enemy of the PPP and reconciliation is not possible with him.”

Bilawal said his mother and PPP’s slain chairperson Benazir Bhutto had once said that she would throw potatoes into the sea but buy them from farmers to protect them from financial losses. “Today, farmers are throwing potatoes on the roads because of the rulers, who are anything but their servants,” he said in an oblique reference to Shahbaz Sharif, who calls himself Khadam-e-Ala (chief servant) of the people of his province.

“PML-N’s policies are anti-famers,” he said, adding that governments across the world gave subsidies to farmers but the PML-N government looted them. “The benefits of decreasing prices of petroleum products in the international market are not passed on to consumers,” he added.

The PPP chairperson said the government could not appoint heads of several important institutions because it has yet not found suitable relatives for these slots. He also blamed the government for the ‘destruction’ of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Pakistan Steel Mills. “The government is planning to sell out these entities at a throwaway price,” he alleged.

With reference to ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Bilawal said the PPP government had carried out successful military operations in Swat and South Waziristan. “From day one, we wanted to eliminate these terrorists. However, the PML-N insisted on holding dialogue with them. They came to their senses when innocent schoolchildren were martyred in Peshawar.”

Bilawal said the PPP should not be associated with terrorists. “PPP Co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari has said, ‘Do whatever you want to but all standards of justice should be upheld’”, he said while referring to Dr Asim Hussain, a close confidante of Zardari, who has been arrested by the paramilitary Rangers on terror financing charges.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2015.