SUKKUR: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that neither patwaris nor maulana can give tough time to this ‘selected’ government but only jiyalas have power and ability to oust this regime.

Bilawal said amid shower of rose petals and charged slogans at a party workers’ gathering here on Monday that PPP would soon come to power in the centre and all provinces with the help of people because they knew full well that only PPP could resolve their issues and give them relief.

He warned the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government not to go too far in victimising its opponents. “Do just as much as you yourself can bear because this is the first and the last time you have been in government,” he said.

“How many days can you languish in jail Mr Niazi because you will soon be paid back in the same coin,” he said, adding only PPP could give tough time to PTI government because “we have to our credit matchless sacrifices for democracy”.

He said that PPP workers had come out to fight for the fundamental rights of people and survival of the country and they were determined to provide relief to people. They had taken to the streets to save livelihood, water and other basic needs of people since PPP governments had always supported the poor and taken care of farmers and growers.

Bilawal said this government had made lives of jiyalas miserable and shown clear bias towards them. “If opposition leader is PPP’s he is thrown behind bars but if he is from Lahore he can move about freely. Fake references have been filed not only against PPP leaders but also against their families like Syed Khursheed Shah who [is] in prison even this very day,” he said.

He said later at Khursheed Shah’s house that this ‘selected’ government had targeted PPP because the rulers knew only this party had the guts to put up a fight. The day was not far when PPP would free Pakistan of the ‘selected’ government, he said.

The ministers of this government had confessed in public that Sindh government and Murad Ail Shah had been hurdle to the federal government. “Put behind bars the party leadership, elected representatives and jiyalas but you cannot break them and the party,” he said.

Bilawal added: “Wherever we have gone people have welcomed us because they know only PPP can give them relief”. Imran Khan promised to give jobs to 10 million people but he had rendered even the already employed jobless during his three years of rule but everyone knew that when PPP came to power it gave jobs to people, he observed.

He said that in another dream gone sour, instead of fulfilling the pre-election promise of building five million houses for the poor, this government had done the very opposite and bulldozed homes of the poor to deprive them of the only roof they had over their heads.

He drew a bleak picture of prevalent conditions and said the situation in the country was worse, inflation and joblessness were at their peak, labourers were dying of starvation and growers could not feed even their own families but “Khan Sahib is celebrating three years of bad governance in Islamabad”.

Bilawal said that Imran Khan’s government was completely illegitimate because he had not come to power through ballot. If he had been a legitimate ruler he would have thought of the poor, not the rich alone, he said.

He said that it was a misconception that Sindh did not want local bodies’ governments as it was Sindh where local bodies completed their five-year tenure. They were ready to hold local bodies’ election as soon as parliament’s joint session was held to discuss census, which PPP rejected as bogus and aimed at depriving people of their constitutional rights.

He said that he had come to Sukkur to seek peoples’ support for his drive to oust this ‘selected’ government because it was high time for jiyalas to wake up against this “illegitimate regime”.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2021