- Former president says PPP will give CPEC back to KP people
Former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Monday said that his son PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto is real leader of the young people, as “Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan is older than me.”
Addressing a public gathering in Mardan, he said that he (Imran) calls himself a leader of the youth. “How can he be a leader of the youth? He is older than me,” he told the gathering. “Bilawal is the real leader of the young people of Pakistan,” he said.
“A captain has come… He (Imran) thinks he is a Pakhtun. He writes Khan after his name. No one knows him here,” he told the crowd. “He (Imran) calls himself a Pathan, but for that, you need to be able to speak Pashto,” he said.
Till today, no one has thought about giving the Pakhtuns an identity, the former president said. He referred that he and his party members had done everything for the Pakhtuns. Turning to the dissenting notes of two senior judges in the Panama Papers verdict, he claimed that even the judiciary have told Nawaz Sharif ‘to go.’
He also said that he brought the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project to them (Pakhtuns). “The CPEC was stolen from you, we will give it back to the people of this province,” he said. He said that once in power, the PPP would merge the tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said that it was the dream of the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto to merge FATA with the province.
The former president said that after being in power, the PPP would double the amount of Benzair cards and there would be ample job opportunities for everyone. The PPP has been on a spree to hold gatherings and protest against the federal government ahead of the next general elections, likely to be held in 2018.
PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq said that the former president’s comments regarding Imran Khan were amusing. The ‘entire world’ knows that Zardari has destroyed the PPP, he claimed, adding that the people of Sindh were fed up with the provincial ruling party.
Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Talal Chaudhary returned the criticism at the PPP leader, saying that Zardari should say what he has given to the nation. The dissenting note has no value, he said over the verdict on the issue of Panama Papers. “If there was any other government it would have been building Swiss accounts and Surrey palace,” he said.
