LAHORE: Admitting that any extreme step by political parties could lead to a crisis in the country, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has demanded the establishment should remain impartial in the active politics.

“We don’t want to lay a siege to the parliament, nor the Prime Minister House. We want to go for the option of a no-confidence [motion against the government]… [for] any extreme step by the [opposition] political parties may lead to a crisis in the country,” he said while talking to the media here on Tuesday.

He said the long march the PPP was set to begin from Karachi on Feb 27 was aimed at demanding the establishment should be neutral [in political affairs]. He asserted if the establishment was neutralised, the party could achieve its objective successfully.

Seeking to deny his party has any link with the establishment, he said such an impression was being created by the media to hurt the PPP’s credibility since it announced the long march on Islamabad.

“We had been interested in [developing links with] the establishment, neither in the past nor now. The PPP has always been in favour of strengthening democracy and the parliament,” he stressed.

Mr Bhutto told a questioner that the PPP desired to dislodge the government through constitutional ways and means and no-confidence was a constitutional mode to oust any government.

He said the PPP was under pressure from the public to remove ‘incompetent’ government and under this pressure it had to announce the long march.

Pledging to challenge in a court of law the controversial State Bank of Pakistan Bill, the PPP chairman denied that opposition leader in the Senate, Yousuf Raza Gilani, deliberately missed the all-important upper house session in which the bill was passed.

“Had there been any secret deal [behind the absence of Mr Gilani], I would not have remained silent.”

Referring to PML-N’s claims of having support of 34 MNAs of the ruling PTI, he challenged the largest opposition party to come forward and overthrow the government with the support of these lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in Mr Bhutto-Zardari’s meeting with former governor Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood at the latter’s residence, it was decided the party’s first public meeting in Punjab would be held at Sadiqabad in the first week of March before its long march would move to Bahawalpur and Multan.

Mr Mahmood, who is also the party’s south Punjab chapter president, has convened a meeting of the region’s leaders on Friday to finalise the long march’s details and make logistical and other arrangements for its participants.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2022