KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders on Monday called the Pakistan Peoples Party’s rally at Bagh-i-Jinnah a complete failure in terms of participation of people and criticised the ruling party of the province for squandering away public money on the party’s programmes and putting all government resources at its disposal.

The PPP had brought their supporters on dozens of buses from rural parts of the province to make its show a success but it completely failed to attract Karachiites who rejected the party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s claims of enjoying widespread support in the metropolis, said Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Sheikh, and PTI Karachi president and MPA Khurram Sher Zaman at separate press conferences here.

‘Oct 17 rally at Bagh-i-Jinnah complete failure’

“The PPP is responsible for growing poverty and increasing sense of deprivation among people of Sindh,” said Sheikh at his office.

“I call them [PPP leaders] economic terrorists who are not worthy of inheriting Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s party. The PPP rally at Bagh-i-Jinnah ground was not a public meeting but an exclusive gathering of Sindh government employees, who were threatened to ensure their participation in the meet or face consequences,” he said.

He said that despite liberally using government resources on the Oct 17 rally, most of the Bagh-i-Jinnah remained empty hence dozens of buses and other vehicles were parked along the main road to hoodwink people into thinking that the ground must be filled with people.

“There was no participation of people from Korangi, Orangi, West, East, South, Keamari and Lyari in the rally,” said Sheikh who was flanked by Sindh Assembly member Saeed Afridi and other PTI leaders.

“The PPP workers are angry with their party as the families of those who were killed in Karsaz twin blasts tragedy were neglected by the party and most of them are now facing hunger and poverty. Instead of paying tribute to martyrs, Bilawal and his men were dancing to the tunes of music,” he said.

MPA Khurram Sher Zaman said at a separate press conference at party headquarters Insaf House that PPP leaders should stop making fool of people in the name of democracy and lie about their checkered past.

He held the party, which had been ruling the province for the past 13 years, responsible for the chronic issues of price hike, poverty, social injustice and deteriorating condition of government departments.

He said the Sindh government had failed on every front and only the party leadership, not the province, had attained prosperity. The PPP, he said, after having realised reputation of Asif Ali Zardari and his front-men among masses had been trying to project Bialwal Bhutto-Zardari as a future leader but he had failed miserably to create any impact on people.

“Even in his address yesterday, he spent more time on criticism of Prime Minister Imran Khan and failed to share details about his government’s performance, which shows he has nothing to show off except legends of corruption.

“They are such an anti-progress party that they neither do any good for people themselves nor allow centre to serve masses on the pretext of the 18th Amendment. But in fact, they just want to keep people of Sindh poor and helpless and thereby strengthen their rule,” he remarked.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2021