KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan “has no capability” to complete his term as all political forces of the country and people belonging to all spheres of life had no other option but to go on agitation against “this puppet government”.

The PPP leader was speaking to the media while visiting the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) where he was briefed by the administration chiefly about the performance of CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Health Minister Azra Pechuho and Information Minister Saeed Ghani accompanied him. JPMC’s executive director, Dr Seemin Jamali received him and guided him to visit various departments of the hospital.

He said the federal government was not competent to steer the country to the right direction, which was the reason that everyone across Pakistan was raising voice against its “anti-people” policies.

In the same breath, however, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said his party would certainly protest against the “selected” government, yet, “we’ll not become part of any act to derail democracy; or allow anyone to do the same”.

The PPP leader said he was not seeing the government to last long for creating self-inflicting hard conditions.

“Everyone is fed up with this puppet government,” said Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

“Every political party and people belonging to every sphere of life, including traders, teachers, doctors and workers, are unhappy with the government’s policies. All this is quite not up to scratch and gives me no assurance to say Mr Imran Khan will complete his term successfully.”

He said the federal government should take measures that could create unity and consensus among the people of Pakistan; but that could not be possible without solving people’s problem.

“Instead of using NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and Rangers to rig elections of tiny significance, the prime minister should forge unity among people by solving their problems,” he said.

While assuring that his party would not allow derailing democracy in Pakistan, he asked the government to resolve issues in a civilised manner as running a country was far different from playing cricket.

He said PPP’s campaign from Karachi to Kashmore and Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s “Freedom March” were equally significant and against the incompetence of the “selected government”.

However, Mr Bhutto-Zardari had a piece of advice for fellow political parties belonging to the opposition to exercise restraint while protesting against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s government to ensure that that should not allow the undemocratic forces to intervene.

He warned the PPP would be on its historic mode against dictatorial rule if another martial law was imposed on the country.

Regarding the Sindh government’s focus on improving health care system, he said the JPMC was the best public sector hospital in the country, which was “much better” than the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

“JPMC is a hospital which offers free of charge the facility like CyberKnife, which is popularly called as the magic knife or magic wand.”

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2019