Bilawal to take oath as minister today

Karachi: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has announced that he is going to Islamabad on Wednesday (today) to take the oath as federal minister.

The PPP chairman made the announcement while addressing a press conference after co-chairing a meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the party along with former President Asif Ali Zardari. However, Bilawal didn’t tell the media about his portfolio. He said he wanted to become a part of the new coalition government for a collective effort to resolve issues being faced by the country.

He said all the political parties, which were a part of the new coalition government, had to play their due role in resolving the problems of the country. He said it was compulsory that the first electoral reforms should be finalised before holding general elections. He said the CEC meeting had condemned the terrorist act in Karachi earlier in the day while considering that it was an attack on the federation of Pakistan. 

“The terror act in Karachi is an attack on the rights and process of development for the residents of Balochistan. We know that some Baloch youths are disgruntled but they would not allow any terrorist to impose their agenda to harm the interest of the Baloch brethren and sisters,” he added.

He said that Pakistan had entered a new phase of development as they were of the view that democracy could resolve all problems of the country. Bilawal said the CEC had greeted the entire nation that the previous “selected” regime had come to an end. He said that people had made history by waging a peaceful struggle against the selected regime and recalled that the former opposition parties had opted to present the no-confidence motion against the former prime minister in a democratic way and they also succeeded. He said that a democratic method had been used to get rid of a person imposed on the country as the opposition had secured a historical political success that was equivalent to a political miracle.

The PPP chairman said that in the past the Constitution had been completely disregarded and abrogated while considering it an unimportant piece of paper. He said that such acts shouldn’t be ignored in order to prevent such violations of the Constitution by anyone in future.

He said that they could never forget that Imran Khan and his political associates on April 9, 2022 had deviated from the Constitution and also abrogated it. He said that they were of the view that the former deputy speaker, the President, and the former PM were involved in the incidents. He said that they the persons who had brazenly violated the Constitution in front of the entire nation should be held accountable.

He demanded that an investigation should be conducted into the acts of attacking the Constitution, parliament, and democracy as people should be briefed as what exactly had happened at that time. He alleged that the politics of former PM Imran Khan was based on lies and baseless propaganda. He said the current political movement of Imran Khan was based on only one question as to why he had not been rescued (by the powers that be when he was in power.

To a question, he said that his talks with former PM Nawaz Sharif were for the sake of re-engagement between the PPP and the PMLN in the best interest of democracy and the nation. He said the Charter of Democracy was one of the issues, which would be collectively taken up by both parties.

Bilawal said that they were of the view that every political party had to play its due role while ignoring their own interests so that every institution started performing their duties in accordance with the Constitution. He said that work had to be done on a war-footing basis to get rid of the harm done by the PTI’s regime.

He said the process of electoral reforms was as necessary as was the process of adopting a new Charter of Democracy so that the next polls in the country shouldn’t be held like the controversial general elections of 2018. He said that they were of view that electoral reforms should be held before the next general election.