MULTAN: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said when his party raised the issue of the establishment of south Punjab province, the PML-N had opposed the idea in and outside of the parliament.

Speaking at a gathering of the PPP workers at the residence of former party MPA Malik Ghulam Abbas Raan at Qadirpur Raan on Saturday, he said: “We will make separate province (of south Punjab) and end the deprivation of this belt if you people support us.”

He also raised slogans, ‘Ghinson, Ghinson, Sooba Ghinson’ (we will get the (new) province ) to a cheering crowd.

He said his party completed a number of development projects in Sindh , including south Asia’s largest cardiac hospital in Karachi where treatment was free of cost.

He said many other cardiac hospitals had been established in various districts of Sindh and such facilities could also be established in Multan, Muzaffargarh and Rahim Yar Khan.

He said over 0.6 million families had come out of poverty in Sindh through interest free loans under a poverty reduction programme.

“If we can do it in Sindh, we can also do it in Punjab as well,” he said.

“I came to Multan while considering it political centre of PPP,” he said.

He said dictator Ziaul Haq got killed labourers of Colony Textile Mill who were demanding the rights given to them by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Former premiwer Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was accompanying Bilawal, said the PPP had strengthened the farmers, women and minorities whenever it came into power.

Earlier, the PPP chairman inaugurated the newly-constructed Bilawal House on Bosan Road which had been declared People’s Secretariat.

Mr Bilawal, is on a three-day visit to Multan where he called on senior party leader Habibullah Shakir who had undergone a heart surgery, and inquired after his health.

He was accompanied by Yousaf Raza Gilani, Haidar Zaman Qureshi, Khawaja Rizwan Alam, Shaukat Basra and others.

Bilawal also addressed workers at a PPP membership camp at Kotla Tolay Khan and said, “Raiwind Company ignored south Punjab and deliberately kept it deprived”.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2018