Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday continued his broadsides against former ruling coalition partner Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), claiming his complaints over the lack of a “level-playing field” were directed against the party.
“Our demand for a level playing field is from the PMLN. We have empowered President Zardari to address the complaint and he must be given time for this purpose,” he told journalists in Lahore, adding it was preferable for the issue to be resolved amongst political parties. However, he failed to specify how the PMLN was ensuring an “uneven playing field,” as the entire country is currently under the rule of caretakers, a majority of whom have no affiliation with the PMLN.
Alleging bias against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for allowing development projects to continue in Punjab and the center, but banning them in Sindh, he said the law should be applied equally on all. “If schemes have been approved and are budgeted, they should be allowed to continue. Perhaps it [ECP ban in Sindh] would not have been so concerning had it been a question of 90 days only, but the election date has not even been announced yet,” he said. “It cannot be that budgeted schemes are not allowed to continue in Sindh while federal projects are,” he added.
Referring to the Punjab caretaker government’s “new initiative” to provide interest-free loans to judges, he stressed this put “a moral, legal and constitutional obligation on the ECP to ensure that there is a level playing field in the center as well as the provinces.”
However, in contrast to the PPP’s repeated claims, the ECP on Monday wrote to the Sindh chief secretary clarifying that it had not barred progress on any projects that had already been approved before the dissolution of the provincial assembly.
To a question on the ongoing detention of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and its potential impact on elections, Bhutto-Zardari said the public was more concerned with inflation. “They have to choose between sending their kids to school, securing healthcare for their elders or paying power bills,” he said, adding it was politicians’ responsibility to provide them hope that a new government would provide them relief.
To another query on the scheduled return of Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan on Oct. 21, the PPP chairman said this was longstanding demand of the PPP and it welcomed it. “As far as legal cases are concerned, we are ready to face ours and we are sure they are too,” he added.
Canada vs. India
Responding to a question on Canada’s linking of the killing of a Sikh leader in Vancouver to Indian intelligence agents, Bhutto-Zardari said India had become a “rogue and terrorist state” that had been “caught violating the sovereignty of a NATO member state.”
Urging the global community to take note of New Delhi’s involvement in “terrorist acts,” he said the Canadian prime minister’s allegation had exposed India before the world. “India has become a rogue, Hindutva, and terrorist state that not only conducted terrorism in Kashmir … we in Pakistan caught their spies involved in terrorism,” he added.