HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that nobody could dictate parliament which is mother of all institutions. The parliament had reinstated 16,000 employees — sacked in the past — through an Act but they were affected through a recent verdict of the judiciary.

He was speaking at a workers’ convention held at Pitafi House, Tando Allahyar, on Saturday.

Bilawal said he had asked the Sindh chief minister to support the affected employees when they file an appeal in court.

He asked party workers to gear up for protests, for which a call would be given by PPP’s provincial chief after Sunday’s meeting in Hyderabad.

On the other hand, he said, the chief minister and provincial ministers would start holding hearing to party workers’ grievances. “So, protests and kachehries will go side by side,” he said.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, PPP Sindh president Nisar Khuhro, Minister Imdad Pitafi and others also spoke.

“The parliament had given employment to 16,000 people as it is supreme and mother of all institutions ... we will not let anyone to snatch their jobs,” Bilawal declared amid slogans of ‘Jeay Bhutto’ at the convention.

He thanked party workers for siding with the Quaid-i-Awam and then his daughter, Benazir Bhutto, in their democratic struggle while challenging General Zia and General Musharraf. “Jiyalas know how to launch struggle or stage a march or hold a jalsa,” he said.

He ridiculed Prime Minister Imran Khan for celebrating completion of his three years in government “which actually marks destruction”. He then went on to analyse PTI government’s performance on economic front. He said common man suffered more badly in present government than any past dispensation.

“Historic price hike and unemployment is PTI government’s real success,” he remarked.

The PPP chairman said that jiyalas would instal an ‘awami government’ of PPP that would serve people. Recalling PPP’s 2008 government, he said Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) was introduced for the poorest of the poor women in the country and subsidies were offered to farmers. He said pro-labour laws were introduced to protect labour rights as well.

He said that people needed a government that offered them relief. He said there had been economic slowdown when [his father] Asif Zardari was acting as the head of state. Price-hike was there and Pakistan was facing economic recession as well. “What is the difference in that government and the present one? The difference is that Asif Zardari didn’t leave people in the lurch and BISP was designed for the poor to fight inflation and give welfare payments to them,” he said.

Bilawal said that 2008 government had raised salaries of civilian employees by 120pc and of soldiers by 175pc whereas pensioners got a 100pc raise. “But what Khan Saheb has done? The PM neither raised salaries nor pension in the last three years.

He said PPP never left common man, soldiers and poor unattended in price hike. He said that PPP’s era had been synonymous with ‘employment’.

He said [his grandfather] Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had given employment to millions and even offered them jobs abroad. He said that Benazir Bhutto also gave jobs to people. “But Asif Zardari’s government broke all records of employment; and now this tyrant PM is snatching jobs from these workers. “The man who got a job after having been selected and became PM through rigging is snatching jobs from you,” he said.

He observed that what General Musharraf wanted to do was being done by Imran Khan, who closed Pakistan Steel Mills and rendered 10,000 workers unemployed. “PSM is Sindh’s asset which was established by Z.A. Bhutto,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2021