- Bilawal Bhutto barred from visiting Skardu
- Party to start movement for reclaiming GB locals’ land
Showing serious reservations on neglecting Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)-related projects, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), GB chapter, has criticised both federal and regional governments for keeping people in dark.
Addressing a party workers gathering in Skardu, on Sunday, PPP (GB) President Advocate Amjad Hussain said that not a single person from the province was present in China to represent the area in the recent signing ceremony of the agreement on power projects on Sindh River.
“Despite being the gateway of the project, GB has been sidelined in CPEC. Our chief minister is surprisingly silent on the issue,” he said, adding, “we will take to roads in case due share in CPEC-related projects is not given to GB.” “We are not against CPEC, what we want is a due share of the multi-billion dollar project,” he said.
The PPP head announced that a movement for ownership of land will be started across the province as the government is leasing out land to CPEC-related projects without compensating the residents terming it government land. “We will protect every inch of land in the area,” he said.
PPP’s chapter faced an embarrassing situation when party workers gathered from four districts of GB kept asking the party leaders about Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who had committed to visiting Skardu but cancelled the visit abruptly.
As the party had not officially disclosed the fact that party chairman was not visiting as per announcement till at the end of the programme, Advocate Amjad observing the workers unrest, announced that Bilawal Bhutto was barred from visiting the area by the Interior Ministry due to security reasons.
The Interior Ministry had not issued security clearance for the PPP chairman to visit Skardu on the recommendations of the regional government, he lamented.
Advocate Amjad Hussain, however, said that the regional leadership was trying to arrange Bilawal Bhutto’s telephonic address to the rally.
He also appealed to the people to join the PPP’s next gatherings regardless of any political or sectarian affiliation, but for the sake of constitutional rights of Gilgit-Baltistan. He said that their rally was not aimed at doing political-scoring, but to expose corruption and bad governance.
This was the first-ever large political gathering of the party since it lost the election in 2015. The gathering was also addressed by former GB Chief Minister Mehdi Shah, the only member of legislative assembly from the party, Imran Nadeem and other leaders.
