ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Thursday, left for Dubai shortly after his father and Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarian (PPP-P) President Asif Ali Zardari publicly undermined his authority.

In an interview with a private TV channel on Thursday, Zardari said, he was the one who had the power to issue party tickets for candidates in the upcoming general election, not his son. He has said in an interview that as President of PPP-P, he has the authority to allot tickets to candidates for coming general elections.

Zardari said Bilawal was still “under training” and “a new plant” who thought his father did not know anything.

Before leaving for Dubai, Bilawal, who is also the son of the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, changed his profile picture on X to one of him with his mother, seemingly as a gesture of defiance. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 and is widely revered as a symbol of democracy and women’s rights in Pakistan.

Bilawal had launched a country-wide election campaign ahead of the general polls scheduled for February 8, 2023. He has addressed huge public rallies in various cities across the country, including in Peshawar, Mardan, and Chitral, where he had urged senior politicians to give the young politicians an opportunity to lead the nation.

However, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Central Information Secretary Faisal Karim Kundi, Friday, suppressed the rumours of differences between the party’s top brass and father-son duo — Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari — after the former foreign minister left for Dubai.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023