MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday asked the Kashmiris to hold the ‘selected puppet’ government of Prime Minister Imran Khan accountable and answerable for the ‘sell-out of Kashmir’.

Speaking at two different events in Mirpur district in the first leg of his three-day tour to AJK to start his party’s election campaign he asked them to return his party with a thumping majority in the upcoming elections to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari. who was accompanied by senior PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira, started his tour from Dhan Galli village at the border of Punjab and AJK where he was received by party’s regional leadership and activists.

From Dhaan Galli his rally arrived at Dadyal where he addressed a big gathering to canvass for Chaudhry Afsar Shahid, PPP’s candidate from LA-1, Mirpur-I.

En-route the neighbouring Kotli district, Mr Bhutto Zardari addressed another gathering at Plaak village in LA-2, Mirpur-II from where Chaudhry Qasim Majeed, son of former AJK premier Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, has been given party ticket.

Mr Bhutto Zardari maintained that each AJK visit filled him with joy “because there was not just a political bondage between the PPP and the people of Kashmir but also a historical bondage.”

“We are with each other for three generations and will remain so for [many more] generations,” he said.

He claimed that Kashmiris had written history by siding with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. Continuing, he said, when they sided with President Asif Ali Zardari, they had historical development in AJK.

He regretted that in response to Modi government’s Aug 5, 2019 move, Prime Minister Imran Khan had expressed helplessness by saying what he could do.

He said while Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had vowed to fight for 1,000 years for Kashmir, PM Khan announced to hold protest demonstrations along the roads on each Friday.

“However, he could not make people stand for you even for one week. When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would give a strike call, not just AJK the whole of occupied Kashmir would shut down.”

Speaking of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, he said the persons who respectively gave the gift of nuclear and missile technologies to the nation were declared ‘security risk’.

He asked people to support him the way they had supported Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto and drive out PTI from AJK to pave the way for PPP’s victory with a thumping majority.

Later. the PPP chairman drove to Kotli district where he offered condolences to the family of party’s stalwart Mohammad Matloob Inqilabi in Dhanna village in LA 13, Kotli-VI. Mr Inqilabi had died in November last year due to a head injury and PPP has fielded his son Waleed Inqilabi from this constituency.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2021