People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that the opposition alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement is not a democratic movement without the PPP and the ANP.
Addressing a press conference in Mardan on Saturday, he said that for the past one year, the PDM had been threatening to resign from assemblies.
He questioned the parties in the PDM why they haven’t resigned.
Bilawal claimed they are not going to resign and will contest the elections as well.
He was of the view that the PDM was following the PPP and likely to side with it.
About the PPP’s future plans with regard to the PDM, he said that neither does the party wish to rejoin the alliance, nor has it has requested for the purpose.
Bilawal categorically said the PPP does not wish to come back in the PDM.
The PPP chairman, however, agreed that the PDM is a political alliance, and although there may be political differences, “we are one in the parliament”.
He said the PPP leadership has given the Leader of the Opposition the authority to make decisions on behalf of all of us.
Bilawal said that he had been telling the PDM parties that had they resigned from the assemblies, they would have left the field wide open for the PTI.
He said that the PPP will not make the mistake of boycotting the Azad Kashmir elections.
He accused the government of wanting to influence the Azad Kashmir elections. “The government has tampered with the electoral list of Azad Kashmir,” Bilawal added.
He said only the PPP had stood up against three dictators.
“One dictator who threatened our supporters is out on exile today while our supporters are still living in their homeland,” he said.
He condemned the arrest of Khursheed Shah’s son Farrukh Shah by the NAB and warned them of a tough response.
“The real face of Imran Khan’s promised ‘change’ is inflation,” Bilawal said, demanding that the government, in the proposed budget for the coming financial year, increase salaries commensurate with the rise in inflation.
