— PPP chairman says PM Imran resorting to politics during foreign tours
–PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal says Opp wants to expose PM’s incompetence, not remove his govt
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan for attacking his political opponents during official visits abroad.
On Wednesday, PM Imran had said while addressing the Malaysian Pakistani community that opposition parties were highly critical of the new government and have been “trying to save face and conceal their thievery in the name of democracy”.
Speaking at a press conference in Gilgit-Baltistan, Bilawal accused the prime minister of “behaving in an unprofessional manner” by resorting to politics when he is supposed to represent Pakistan on an international level.
He added that he can tell the rest of the world that PM Imran won his seat by “stealing votes”.
Calling Imran a “puppet prime minister”, he continued that PPP is a strong party, which has faced dictators like Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf in the past.
Bilawal alleged that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government is working on an elitist agenda and is an “enemy of the poor community”.
“The government is demolishing shops and calling them illegal encroachments. It should take the poor into consideration before implementing such policies.”
He added that prices were sky high and the country’s economic condition seems to be disintegrating further every day.
Setting aside PTI’s austerity drive, Bilawal claimed that not a single step has been taken by the ruling party to crackdown on corruption.
“Imran Khan is an insecure leader whose government is very weak. He wants to pressurise his opponents by exacting revenge so they cannot oppose him.”
Calling for equal policies for all people irrespective of political affiliation, the PPP chairman said: “If we want to curb corruption we have to hold everyone accountable.”
Commenting on PPP’s former governments, he called it unfortunate that “non-political forces removed leaders like Bhutto who thought for Pakistan’s betterment whenever they came to power”.
He concluded with a promise that his party is prepared to fight for democratic rights, a free press and constitutional human rights.
CPEC:
Speaking in Karachi, PML-N leader and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal said that the prime minister should not throw unwarranted allegations, but call upon the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) to provide evidence substantiating his claims of corruption.
“I was the minister in charge of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects and I challenge PM Imran to justify how corruption took place.”
He added that PM Imran praised CPEC greatly in China and claimed that it would help Pakistan but in the country, he stood in the assembly and attacked [PML-N] for starting the project.”
“You should decide who you stand with. Are you with Pakistan and CPEC or are you with those forces that question the credibility of the project and want to make it controversial,” Iqbal called out to the PM.
Later he called PM Imran “incompetent”, adding that his threats could not scare the opposition but he will not be able to “hide his incompetence behind the veil of arrests”.
Claiming that a man who never even ran a union council has been appointed the prime minister, he stressed that soon the nation will know that an inexperienced person will remain so.
Responding to PM Imran’s remark that the opposition wants to see his government fail, he replied that he should not be afraid for the opposition does not want to topple his government, but wants to “expose his incompetence fully to the world”.
He ended his conference by saying: “You have your time; deliver and show your worth to the world.”
