RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday visited the headquarters of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqah-i-Jafariya (TNFJ) where TNFJ chief Allama Agha Syed Hussain Muqaddasi announced to support the PPP in the Feb 8 elections.

Talking to journalists on the occasion, the PPP chairman said he had come to meet the TNFJ leadership to revive the relations of the times of Benazir Bhutto. He said politics of hate and division was harming Pakistan. We need to be united and struggle for a stronger and better Pakistan.

Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari accompanied the PPP chairman. TNFJ Secretary General Allama Basharat Hussain Imami. Additional Secretary General Allama Syed Qamar Haider Rizvi, Chairman political cell Zulfiqar Ali Raja, Secretary Public Relations Syed Hasan Kazmi and Coordinator Syed Ali Mehdi were included in a delegation which met the PPP chairman.

Responding to questions, The PPP chairman said the PPP was not in PDM when the coalition government was formed. “We joined the coalition government to reduce problems the country was facing. Perhaps the other party was not interested. We need to solve our problems unitedly and there is benefit in working together,” he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said that he did not listen to the speeches of Nawaz Sharif but had challenged him for a debate as it was a tradition internationally so that everyone can talk about their manifesto.

He said that Shehbaz Sharif had said he wanted to have such a debate in Sindh which I had accepted. “I do not know why Mian Sahib is running away from the debate,” he said.

“Pakistan especially Punjab has always supported brave people and they did not like cowards. Mian Sahib wants to become PM for the fourth time but is reluctant to do debate and if he knows about his own policies then he should come to Sindh and debate with me in any city of Sindh whether in Gambat, Karachi or Tharparkar,” he said.

Replying to another question, the PPP chairman said we are in politics for the last three generations. “Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and our government from 2008 till 2013 fulfilled the promises made in our manifestos. We want to take along everyone who wants an end to politics of hate and division,” he said.

To another question, he said the interim Punjab government and the ECP should have acted against people who were harassing PPP workers in Punjab especially in NA-127. “When a councillor of PML-N joined PPP he was arrested in NA-127. When a PTI councillor wants to join PPP, they suddenly remember the 9th May incident had happened. This is PML-N’s politics which wants to contest without any rival,” he said.

“This is undemocratic. The PML-N thinks that it has knocked out a party on technical ground. They want the same undemocratic means against the PPP,” he said. He questioned the caretaker Punjab chief minister, IG and the chief secretary Punjab if PPP workers were involved in May 9 incidents? Whenever PPP workers become active they are arrested, he said.

“A party will protest no matter what are the results and do they want that another party should join that protest as well. Why the PML-N is frightened? They say that they are the most popular politicians but why they are troubling PPP workers. Mian Sahib wants to become PM by hook or by crook the fourth time but the majority of the population does not want him the PM the fourth time. The PML-N is insecure,” he said.

Meets students at SZABIST

Meanwhile, talking to students in a question-answer session on ‘Chuno Nayi Soch Ko’ at Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), the PPP chairman held the governments of Imran Khan and PDM for the poor economy of the country.

“They both failed to address the financial problems. When Imran Khan could see himself failing the no-confidence motion, he reduced the price of petrol to win the support of the Pakistani people,” he said. “Imran Khan, Sharif family or Ishaq Dar did not bear the burden of these decisions, the people did,” he said.

He said the PPP had joined the unity government with the hopes that the problems of the people would be taken seriously. While the country was saved from a default, due to floods and by-elections, the government decided not to implement the IMF deal for three months. Hence, the economic team of the unity government had the same fatal flaw as Imran Khan, he said. The PPP chairman said people of the country were still bearing the brunt of these mistakes, he said.

He said that the PPP consulted various experts on the severity of the dangers posed by climate change. The largest collection of snow and ice, after the north and south poles, is in the Himalayan range in Pakistan. Until now, the world was under the impression that only the polar bears and penguins were endangered due to the climate change. “It did not occur to anyone what would become of the 250 million people living directly underneath the third-largest collection of ice and snow anywhere on the planet,” he said.

He said that not only the Pakistani people but the international community needed to be apprised of the fact that Pakistani is a frontline state and its contribution to carbon emissions is less than 1pc yet its survival is at stake. “The solution to this problem cannot be reached alone, and the threat of climate change needs to be combated in collaboration with the rest of the world,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2024

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