PPP launches election campaign in KP: Bilawal says erstwhile Fata, Pata to be given ‘special status’

PESHAWAR: PPP Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that if voted to power, he would give a special status to the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) and permanent tax relief.

Addressing at a public meeting at Dir Upper during his weeklong visit to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday, he said that these regions are required to be turned into a tax-free zone to usher socioeconomic uplift of the people.

Bilawal Bhutto is currently on a visit to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to mobilize party workers for the February 8, 2024 general elections.

He already addressed PPP workers’ convention in Abbottabad, Mardan, Peshawar and Nowshera. After the Tuesday public meeting, the next destination of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will be district Chitral wherein he will address another public meeting.

Bilawal said that the people of the country has tested both PML-N, which he taunted as Mehangayee League (Inflation League) and PTI, which was making tall claims of bringing change, but had done nothing than destruction.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was foreign minister during former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif rule said that they had joined that government to battle economic, foreign policy, political, constitutional and democratic crises through that political coalition.

In the beginning, he said that it performed very well and come to power in a democratic manner and the state institutions also announced that in future they will remain neutral and expressed regretted their interferences of past with the pledge in future it will not happen again.

He said that PPP welcomed that good gesture and developed a trust that our ally which is talking of the supremacy of vote, democracy and parliament. So they joined them to bring Pakistan out of the economic crisis, struggled for strengthening of economy and combating of inflation, but despite the replacement of finance ministers, it further worsen.

He said that the approach of PPP towards joining the coalition government was the restoration of democracy and carrying collective democratic struggle, but they failed to honour their commitment, which disappointed not only I rather also the youth of the country.

The PPP leader said that they are hopeful that elections would be held on February 08, 2024 and the today participation of the people of Dir in the public meeting has proved that at least they are ready for polls. He said that their stance in the general elections will be that the people have already seen the real faces of the PML-N and PTI, therefore, the electorate should vote in their favour to given them a chance to deliver.

He said that the checkered history of PPP has proved that is the only representative political party of downtrodden and common man and whenever it had come to power, it works for poor, labourers and peasants and not for gentry and rich.

Bilawal further said that neither PML-N nor PTI governments extended facilities or given any relief to the poor. He said that even today the cards of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) are benefiting the people.

He said that BISP was a revolutionary programme for provision of financial assistance to poor women and play role in the poverty alleviation and women empowerment. However, he said it is insufficient and they have to do more for extending relief to all downtrodden segments of the society in any shape.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023