Bilawal asks PM to step down, criticizes him for "going soft" on his Indian counterpart

Coming out strongly against the government, PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on

Saturday asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down, until an inquiry into the money laundering allegations levelled at his family was completed.

“As long as the investigations into the Panama leaks are ongoing, you should resign. You can resume [office] when you are absolved of the charges,” he said, reminding Mr Sharif of the advice he had given to former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani when the latter was facing multiple charges, including allegations of involvement in the Haj scam as well as contempt of court.

He was speaking at a public rally in the city of Kotli in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), held to kickstart his party’s election campaign ahead of polls in AJK, where the PPP has held power since 2011.

Observers said despite campaigning for the event, the party failed to attract more than six thousand people. It was surely smaller than PTI chief Imran Khan's public rally in the same ground.

Accusing the prime minister of letting business interests dictate his policies, Mr Bhutto-Zardari exclaimed, “Alas! You have been the prime minister thrice, but you could not become a leader."

“Your days are already numbered. Today, you have been reduced to the level where you rush to Russia one day and head to London the next for a check-up. You send one representative to Germany and another to the US, and when all this doesn’t work, you rush to Panama and bootlick their finance minister,” he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari criticised Orange Train and Metro buses projects, saying they had not benefited the poor. He also came down upon the government for not passing the benefit of petrol prices reduction in the global market.

He said the loans obtained by PML-N government over the last three years were bigger than the collective figure of all previous governments.

“The nation will hold you accountable for it. But you also know very well that your government will not complete its constitutional term, which is why you have announced rallies across the country in anticipation of snap polls,” he said.

“You also know very well that your government will not be able to complete its constitutional term, which is why you have announced rallies across the country, in anticipation of snap polls,” he said, echoing what PTI chief Imran Khan had been advocating in recent days.

This is the first time the party has blatantly called for the PM to step down in the wake of allegations — thrown up by the Panama Papers leaks — that his children owned offshore companies.

Earlier this month, party leaders had repeatedly termed the PTI’s call for the PM’s resignation as ‘premature’, saying it was too early to demand anyone’s resignation on the basis of the leaks.

KASHMIR-BAITING?

Throughout his speech, the PPP chairman repeatedly attacked the PM for going soft on his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi. Playing on local sentiment against PM Sharif over what he called the government’s “obliviousness” to the human rights violations in India-held Kashmir, he said, “Nawaz Sharif has not spoken strongly on the Kashmir issue for the past three years, let alone condemning atrocities in India-held Kashmir.”

Mentioning Asiya Andrabi, a Srinagar based pro-Pakistan activist, he said while the US had expressed concern over her arrest, the PML-N government did not bother to utter a few words.

“I Bilawal Bhutto Zardari assure the people of both parts of Kashmir that PPP will never remain silent over their rights. We are beside you and we will remain beside you in every struggle of yours,” he said.

He said he did not have any fear to speak for the Kashmiris.

“Whenever we speak on Kashmir, Mr Modi and Indian media launch propaganda against us. They burn our pictures, hack our party’s website because they know that Bhutto’s voice is heard across the globe,” he said.

“When puppets speak, they say it’s the ISI speaking and when Mullahs (a reference to clergy) speak, they say it’s the terrorists speaking, but when a Bhutto speaks, they don’t have any answer.”

“Listen, even if Mian sahib does not speak, the PML-N government keeps mum over the atrocities on the unarmed Kashmiris, don’t worry I will become your voice and apprise the world of the brutalities of Modi government,” he added.

He said Kashmiris had a long history of struggle and he was proud to be the chairman of a party that had always stood for them.

He said he viewed Kashmir as Germany, where a nation had been divided by erecting a fence.

 “If my voice is being heard across the divide, my slogan is grander than the rest, i.e., plebiscite, plebiscite (in Kashmir)… We will take the whole of Kashmir.”

At the outset of his speech, Mr Bhutto-Zardari highlighted the importance of the settlement of Kashmir and Palestine conflicts for global peace, which he said would never come as long as the Indians and the Israelis shed the blood of the Kashmiris and the Palestinians, respectively.

 “Peace in South Asia will bring peace in the Middle East and peace in both regions will turn the whole world into a peaceful place. I ask the governments in South Asia as well as world powers that while you talk about peace and pinpoint the problem, why don’t you take steps to address the problem.”

“You pass resolutions at the United Nations, but fail to implement them. You talk about human rights, but you turn deaf ears and blind eyes towards the repression in Indian held Kashmir,” he said to the world community.

He lamented that there was an arms race between countries while poverty was touching greater heights, education and health facilities were almost non-existent and extremism and fanaticism was multiplying daily, mainly because major issues and conflicts were thrown into the cold storage instead of their settlement.

He alleged that the PML-N government was meting out similar treatment to Kashmir issue.

On AJK elections, he alleged that the federal government was distributing AJK Council funds among PML-N candidates, fake CNICs were being prepared through Nadra, non-Kashmiri votes were being enrolled in Punjab and Balochistan “to replay 2013 like rigging in the upcoming AJK polls.”

“I know they are experts of rigging and stealing the mandate of others through bullying and artifice. But I have full faith that my Kashmiri brethren will fail their designs…Defeat of Nawaz Sharif will be the defeat of Modi and victory of Kashmir,” he said.

Listing some achievements by his party’s government in education sector in AJK, he said: “Surely mistakes might also have been committed but I will now take care of everything myself.”

“Whoever will make a mistake will have to account for it. I will not tolerate corruption at any cost, because I believe in transparency, service to people and their development.”

The PPP chairman also asked the federal government to give special package to AJK and make maximum investments in different sectors.

“I want to see a bright Pakistan from a prosperous Azad Kashmir where people have employment and free health and education facilities,” he said.

“If we are brought into power we will translate this dream into reality,” he said, while asking people to give him a pledge that they will vote for the PPP.

Former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gil­ani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, AJK PM Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, senior minister Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin and others also spoke on the occasion.

GOVT REACTION

The ruling PML-N, however, dismissed Mr Bhutto-Zardari’s outburst, maintaining that the PPP chief was twisting the facts to suit his agenda.

“Instead of demanding PM Sharif’s resignation, he should have asked for one from Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, who has plunged the beautiful region of AJK into the depths of dilapidation, corruption and bad governance,” Dr Asif Saeed Kirmani, special assistant to the prime minister, told this scribe.

He also deplored the PPP leader’s “irrational demand” for the PM’s resignation, saying that “he (Bilawal) does not know that the prime minister does not figure anywhere in the Panama Papers.

“The names of his children are there, and they will clear themselves when­ever a commission is constituted,” he said.

On the Kashmir-specific allegations, Dr Kirmani maintained that Kashmir was an international issue but was converted into a regional dispute by Mr Bilawal’s grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto under Simla Agreement.

“It goes to the credit of Nawaz Sharif that he revived this issue at the UN and all other international forums with full force,” he said.

Otherwise, Dr Kirmani said, he welcomed Mr Bilawal in AJK, because “finally the PPP leader had felt the heat of the successful workers’ conventions by the PML-N.

He claimed that the people of AJK were fed up to the hilt with the “corrupt and inefficient” PPP government, which would be sent packing through the power of vote.

“Mr Bilawal’s speech reflected his fear of PML-N’s popularity. Let it be know to him that by the blessings of Allah and support of masses the PML-N will form next AJK government with absolute majority.”

… Tariq Naqash