LARKANA, Dec 27 (APP): Pakistani People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the crisis is not just of inflation of country, but of running a household, getting treatment, and living a life of dignity. The Pakistan Peoples Party has the capability, the vision, and the manifesto that can pull the people out of their difficulties. He expressed these views while addressing the Jalsa of the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto on occasion of 18th Anniversary on Saturday.
He said the Pakistan Peoples Party, in line with the vision of Shaheed Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, will bring people-friendly, poor-friendly policies that will eliminate the people’s problems and lighten their burdens.
He said that through the BISP program initiated by President Asif Ali Zardari, financial assistance is provided to poor women. The Sindh government of the Pakistan Peoples Party has, after the historic floods, begun historic work; 200,000 permanent houses are being built for homeless families, and the ownership of these houses and land is being given to women. The Pakistan Peoples Party is economically empowering women and is assisting 200,000 peasant women. Regarding what the government should do to remove the difficulties of the common people, the PPP government decided after the 18th Amendment that we will expand the network of the global health sector in Sindh province and that there will be 100% free treatment in hospitals. We have become worthy of saying that NICVD Karachi, along with Sukkur and across all of Sindh, has a network of hospitals whose standard is comparable not only with Pakistan but with the entire world. It is the only institution that provides free heart treatment across all of Pakistan. NICHS, a free and emergency child life facility for children, such a hospital has been established in Gambat tehsil where free treatment for cancer, heart, kidney, and bone marrow is provided at a global standard, he added.
He said there is no such hospital in any other hospital anywhere in Pakistan. We want the people to get free treatment facilities. In these hospitals, more than 50% come from Balochistan, Southern Punjab, and other regions where they are provided free treatment. He said we consider it our duty to solve the problems of the poor; only the Pakistan Peoples Party does this.
He said when the floods came, farmers and settlers were in difficulties; we appealed to the Prime Minister that the conditions you have set with the IMF are causing problems for farmers and settlers, we are grateful to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister declared an agricultural emergency.
He said we appealed to the Chief Minister to give relief in taxes, I am grateful to the Chief Minister who gave relief in fertilizers and other things to farmers and settlers owning from 1 acre to 25 acres. It is the government’s responsibility to solve the people’s problems.
He said in the education sector, Quaid-e-Awam and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and I received education from institutions like Oxford; we thought that the youth from backward areas should also receive education from such institutions. He said the Balochistan government has started a scholarship program so they can be helped economically. He said we all have to work together to pull Pakistan out of the economic crisis, but it is essential to first pull it out of the political crisis.
He said the political existence of the Peoples Party is due to the martyrs of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto and the workers of the PPP. He said the last message of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was of reconciliation, Shaheed Bibi also wrote her last book on reconciliation; to get out of the political crisis, today or tomorrow we will need that kind of reconciliation. To make reconciliation successful, political parties and political leaderships will have to abandon political extremism.
He says more Political workers will have to be brought back into the political arena. Incidents like May 9 happen, or various institutions are maligned day and night; all these are outside the political arena. I want to ask the workers of the Peoples Party that if NAB serves me a notice and President Zardari is arrested, I would ask you: if you attack the Corps Commander’s House and the Defense Base, would the behavior towards you be harsh or not?
He said we understand that Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was sent to the gallows, but we always engaged in political opposition and were successful, that is the reason why after that Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister of the country. By remaining within the political arena, you have seen the 30-year struggle of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, what kind of oppression she did not face.
He said in 1986, PPP workers in Lahore broke a world record for the gathering of people for a political leader; we confronted while remaining in the political arena. If we had not remained in the political arena, Shaheed Bibi would have said she wanted revenge, to bring the heads of those who gave Bhutto the gallows. That is not the politics of the Peoples Party. Such kind of politics will cause damage to Pakistan, the people, and one’s own political workers. In her life, Shaheed Bibi always rejected such political extremism. At the time of the martyrdom of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, the entire Pakistan was inflamed, and slogans of ‘Pakistan na khappe, na khappe’ (We don’t want Pakistan) were being raised, he added
He said President Zardari said that by remaining in the political arena, we did politics and saved Pakistan, democracy, and the workers, and ultimately defeated that dictator as well. The current direction of politics is not in the benefit of the people; the country is suffering damage. Due to political division, damage has been caused to politics, the country, the economy, and even national security. No one is ready to bear this.
He said if we have to pull Pakistan out of the political crisis so that we can get out of the economic crisis, the threats at the national security level, the issues of terrorism and others within the country, if we have to confront them, then a path will have to be charted for the political forces.
He said political parties should practice responsible politics, and the parties that are in government should also think in the national interest and play their role. He said to pull the country out of crises, if Pakistan’s political parties and organizations have trust and hope in one individual, then who is that person in Pakistan’s politics?
He said political extremism has begun, so then who is that sole person who is the king of reconciliation, who can pull Pakistan out of this difficulty? That one person is President Asif Ali Zardari. How and when this will happen, our elders will decide that; we can only give suggestions. We all will have to play our role so that we can truly serve the people of Pakistan and unite Pakistan as a nation, just as during the May war, the whole of Pakistan united and gave a befitting reply to India, that was also historic.
He expressed hope that we will all work together to correct Pakistan’s economic direction and also take responsibility for pulling it out of the political crisis.
