Former foreign minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Sunday that the general elections scheduled for February 8 will lose “legitimacy and standing” if political parties’ reservations and criticism of polls continue like this.

“All elections undergo scrutiny, and the current polls are no exception,” he said during an interview with Dawn News.

His statement comes hours after Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Atta Tarar, contesting the election against Bilawal from Lahore’s NA-127, stormed PPP’s office and accused Bilawal of “buying votes.”

Bilawal said PML-N had resorted to the politics of violence, claiming that the former ruling party was on course of losing upcoming polls.

“Our representatives in Punjab are being tortured. This shows that we have already won the polls,” he added.

To a question about a recent court judgement handing seven-year jail terms to both former premier Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the Iddat case, Bilawal said it was “difficult for him to support” such verdicts.

He remarked that efforts made in the past to safeguard women’s rights may also be negatively impacted by the verdict.

“The way it is all running on the media, I do not want to get into this gutter,” he said.

While addressing a political gathering in Hyderabad earlier in the day, the PPP Chairman said he wanted to end the politics of divide and bring the nation together.

Tweeting about the same, Bilawal thanked the people of Hyderabad and said people will no longer allow the agents of old politics to divide them.

“The Pakistan Peoples Party is the only political party that stands for all Pakistanis, regardless of ethnicity, religion, caste, or belief. Stand with us and vote Teer on 8th February and choose to end the politics of division, violence, and hate,” he wrote on X.