SUKKUR: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said his party workers know how to drive out a “puppet prime minister” and asked them to get ready for fresh elections.

While addressing the jiyalas who gathered here in Sukkur to welcome him on Monday, the PPP chairman said: “Imran Khan’s government made every institution of the country controversial. State institutions belong to every Pakistani, not Imran Khan.”

He expressed the hope that the judiciary would protect the parliament amid the current constitutional crisis. “Imran Khan has no idea what’s happened to him,” he said, adding that his government was over and ex-ministers were celebrating his defeat.

Instead of standing up to his opponents, Mr Khan ran away from the ground, the PPP chairman said, while referring to dissolution of the National Assembly on Sunday after attempt to block the opposition’s no-trust resolution.

“These jiyalas [party activists] of Pakistan Peoples Party will not allow anyone to play with the Constitution,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari said, adding that the case about the dismissal of the no-trust resolution was in the Supreme Court and the opposition hoped the judiciary would pronounce a verdict in support of the Constitution.

He said “selecting” Mr Khan, who brought a tsunami of inflation and gave the “gift of unemployment” to the people, was a big mistake. But the opposition held the PTI-led government accountable by “ousting” him, he told the crowd of people who had gathered to welcome him a day after the president dissolved the national assembly.

“We have always spoken for the rights of people whether they belong to Sindh, Punjab or other provinces of Pakistan,” the PPP chairman said.

He said a procession to mark Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s anniversary was not arranged due to Ramazan.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2022