MULTAN/NAWABSHAH: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Sunday slammed both Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for “following policies that abhor the masses and favour the elite.”
“PTI is just an extension of the PML-N,” he told a workers’ convention in Multan. “Manifesto of PTI and PML-N is telling lies and hurling abuses,” he said, adding that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted from the office of the prime minister by Supreme Court for lying to the masses. “They both are anti-people. Despite apparent rifts, their policies are same. Their eyes are only on the premiership, and not on the development of the country,” he said.
Criticizing the PML-N government, the PPP chief said that they had ruined the national institutions. “They have ruined Pakistan Steel Mills and Pakistan International Airlines, which once used to be world’s No 1 airliner,” he lamented.
“On the other hand, PPP always served the people and explored new avenues for their betterment and uplift,” he said. “PPP is the party which rendered huge sacrifices for the sake of people and the country,” he added.
He said the PPP’s founder Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced land reforms in the country. “We took land from the feudal lords and distributed it among the poor peasants. PPP is the party of peasants, workers, students and the masses,” he added.
Bilawal said that PPP had in 2009 launched the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) which facilitates the impoverished, particularly the women. PPP’s Sindh government has also launched a union council-level poverty reduction programme which has so far pulled 600,000 families out of poverty, he said.
The PPP chairman urged his workers to spread the party message as the elections were nearing and it was time to approach the people who had suffered most at the hands of the PML-N and the PTI. He urged the party workers to actively participate in the ongoing membership campaign.
Published in Daily Times, April 9th 2018.
