LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said the students resisted the dictatorial rules of Gen Ayub and Gen Zia and that is why the students’ unions were banned by the latter.

Addressing the participants of the long march at Okara on Saturday, he said the dictators and their supporters deprived the students of their democratic rights while Sindh government restored the student unions, adding that now the PPP wanted their restoration all over the country.

In the backdrop of Friday’s Peshawer blast, he said the incidents of terrorism increased during this government, whereas the PPP had thwarted terrorists’ designs during its tenure from 2008 to 2013. He vowed to continue defeating the extremists and terrorists in future as well.

“If the farmer is prosperous, the entire country is prosperous and Quaid-e-Awam Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto gave the farmers the right to ownership of their land. We believe in the philosophy that the one who sows should be the one who reaps,” he said.

Bialwal said Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto had ordered her government to buy the entire crop of potato when the farmers were not getting proper return for their toil because she did not want the farmers to sleep hungry. In contrast, he said, the current government forced the farmers to buy fertilisers from black market.He said that being himself young, he understood the issues of the youth, adding that the it was the PPP that established most universities in the country.

He said that Quaid-e-Awam and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto introduced 5 and 7 marla housing schemes during their governments, whereas this “selected” PM could not give a single house to anyone despite his promise of building 5000,000 houses. He mentioned the PPP increased the pay and pension of government employees, while the PTI’s government rendered thousands unemployed.

Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Asharaf, addressing the march participants termed Imran Khan “master of U-turns” and said the PTI chairman deceived the public through his slogans and false promises.

Earlier, the people standing along both sides of the road at Okara city stopped the PPP chairman at three points and requested him to address them.

Accepting their requests, Bilawal addressed his supporters at three different places at Okara.

At Pattoki, the PPP workers removed the barriers installed on the road by the police. In his address at Pattoki, the PPP chairman asked the people of Punjab to reach Islamabad with the march to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan.

He said the PPP march would take revenge from PM Khan for introducing tax amnesty schemes for industrialists and real estate tycoons but imposing tax on the poor.

“We demand relief for small businesses, farmers, labourers and common people, while PM Khan raised hands saying he did not have any funds for them, but gave NRO of zero tax to rich industrialists and real estate tycoons,” he said.

PPP central leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad and others leading a procession welcomed the march.

The march participants reached Bilawal House in Bahria Town on Saturday night where arrangements were made for their stay. The march would resume its journey in the morning from Bahria Town to reach Nasser Bagh where the PPP chairman would address them.

(Aslam Piracha from Okara also contributed to this report)

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022