LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has played down desertions in the party, saying he is not worried as long as jiyalas (Bhutto loyalists) are with him.

“I don’t give a fig for the leaders abandoning the party. Neither BB (his mother Benazir Bhutto) had bothered the desertions [back in 1980] nor am I,” he was quoted as saying while talking to a PPP delegation from Faisalabad division at the Bilawal House here on Wednesday.

“What I bother is jiyalas. I’m confident as far as you are with me.”

He said he would visit all divisional headquarters and meet the party activists after Eidul Fitr.

He said ideologies and ideological parties faced ups and downs world over and the PPP as a progressive party knew well how to face the emerging situation.

The PPP, he claimed, would again come to power with the help of its “street power”.

Bilawal hoped that the activists would work forcefully to give a tough time both to the PML-N and the PTI in the next elections.

He said “sham” lions could not worry the jiyalas, who could not be bowed down by oppressive policies of two military dictators -- Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf. The party had successfully challenged the dictators and the extremists in the past and would do so again, he added.

Those who attended the meeting included central general secretary Nayyer Husain Bokhari, information secretary Chaudhry Manzoor and Punjab information secretary Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.

Meanwhile, Bilawal has condemned the terrorist attacks in Iran.

In a statement, he said the attack on Iranian parliament and blast on Imam Khomenei’s mausoleum were threats to the regional peace.

Sympathising with the victims, he said the PPP condemned terror acts anywhere in the world and believed that joint efforts were needed to eradicate terrorism from the region.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2017