MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Monday reassured Kashmiris that only they had the right to make a decision about their future status.

“We don’t think that the decision about the future of Kashmiri people will be taken either by Islamabad or by New Delhi. We believe it’s you who have the right to decide and we will go by your preference,” he said at a public meeting in Nakyal, during the second leg of his campaign for PPP candidates in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

“If you [Kashmiris] order us to establish peace with India, there will be peace the next day. And if you ask us to go for a war with India, there will be a war,” he said, adding: “When Ms Bhutto focused on democracy and a parliamentary system in AJK, she also meant to empower you to decide about your future on your own.”

“When you make a decision it will be in your interest, but when a puppet does so, it will not be in your favour,” he said.

Says decision on Kashmir will not be taken by Islamabad or New Delhi

Tracing his party’s struggle against dictators, he said Gen Ziaul Haq had toppled the first directly elected government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on July 5, 1977. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto also resisted two dictators to accomplish the mission of her father.

He said cowardly rulers and all puppet parties are afraid of PPP workers who were firm in their resolve to carry on their struggle to gain peoples’ rights.

While recalling how Kashmiris and PPP were linked with each other since three generations, he asked party loyalists to reach out and revive a relationship with those who were part of the PPP and had risen to ministerial positions because of it in the past but ditched it afterwards.

“Go from door to door and tell those who have ever chanted the slogan of Jiye Bhutto [...] that we have set out to accomplish the mission of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and Bilawal and PPP need you [back].

“Let’s forget the past and gear up for the future which belongs to the PPP,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari said, predicting that Pakistan and this region is to undergo difficult times in the days to come.

“In this context, we believe that only one party can defend the honour and integrity of Pakistan, only one party can back a common man, only one party can bring Pakistan out of economic crisis, and only one party can negotiate with China and the United States and can also talk to India face to face,” he said.

Attack on PPP AJK president condemned

Mr Bhutto-Zardari condemned an alleged attack on the party’s regional president Chaudhry Latif Akbar.

He said: “First the MC attacked him and then the ones who claim that votes should be respected attacked him. Let me tell them that the jiyalas are there to defend their leaders and we will not let you do such politics.”

“We will compete with Muslim Conference, with the puppet in Azad Kashmir and with the puppet in Islamabad. We will defeat all of them in elections.”

The PPP chairman said Modi could be defeated by bringing more economic prosperity in AJK than in occupied Kashmir.

“We brought prosperity in the lives of people during our previous government by increasing the salaries of government employees as well as pensions of retired elderly people,” he said, adding, his politics was based on truth and not like the puppet who had promised the sun, moon and stars but rendered millions jobless and homeless.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2021