MITHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Tuesday promised to connect Thar and Karachi through a railway line, as he said they would fight poverty and unemployment, adding that the masses were facing a tsunami of inflation.
Addressing a press conference in Mithi, Bilawal said the PPP had never enjoyed a level playing field and a particular “pitch” was being prepared currently. His party was ready to play on every kind of pitch, he remarked.
He also advised former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to stay in Punjab and try solving the issues there with a complete focus – a clear reference to the PML-N’s attempts to make inroads in Sindh and Balochistan.
Electoral alliance with PTI: PPP has not taken any decision yet: Bilawal
The PML-N should do politics on its own and should not ask any “institution” to do that on the party’s behalf, he said. Would those who couldn’t win by-elections in Punjab give a surprise to the PPP, he asked.
The PPP chairman said the caretaker setup was responsible for organising general elections and continuing with the policies set by the pervious coalition. “We were pushed into one crisis after another during the past five years,” he remarked.
He called for a maximum number of PPP candidates in the upcoming elections, because, he added, it was a people-friendly party. Thar had witnessed a 50 percent decrease in child mortality due to the steps taken by the PPP government, Bilawal noted.
The decision to be part of the government along with the PDM was taken in national, not political, interest, he recalled, and said they would try to form a government after elections.
Bilawal claimed that his party was way ahead of both the PML-N and the PTI in performance.
The PPP could deliver, he told reporters and added the PPP would fulfill the promise of Roti, Kapra and Makan [Food, Clothing and Shelter] – the famous slogan that enabled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to win the 1970 general elections, the first in Pakistan’s history.
Bilawal said the Centre had stopped releasing the funds [under the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award] and other heads, hindering the development projects and rehabilitation of flood affectees in the province.
He cited the example of social welfare initiatives, especially designed for the people of Thar, including the stipend for children – from their birth till the age of three.
The Sindh government was supposed to provide the money in collaboration with the Centre, the PPP chairman said.
The PPP had remained a victim of character assassination meant to portray a picture that it could not deliver and was weak in carrying out development works, Bilawal said while listing the projects initiated in Thar and other parts of Sindh.