LARKANA: Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party, has requested apex court to set a new precedent by striking down what he called Imran Khan’s coup and restore parliament to allow it go through no-confidence process.

“We respect judiciary and whatever verdict the court gives we will form an awami government,” Bilawal said while speaking to a gathering at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto which had been organised to observe the 43rd death anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto late on Monday night.

He said: “The selected raj is over and awami raj will herald soon” and asked workers to gear up for all circumstance and elections.

Criticising Imran Khan’s foreign policy, he said that he [Imran Khan] had not only slowed to a stop progress on CPEC but also sabotaged and made it controversial. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made Pakistan nuclear, Benazir Bhutto armed it with missile technology while Asif Ali Zardari inked Pak-Iran gas pipeline project to buy gas at cheaper rate and also brought in CPEC, he said.

He congratulated the crowd and said that real face of Imran Khan had been brought before world. He was not peoples’ representative, he was imposed on people through rigged elections and he worked against 18th Amendment to rob away rights of the provinces, he said.

He said referring to Imran Khan that: “Either we will oust him through democratic process or accept the ‘undemocratic’ suicide. We must capture the moment, pull out of present crisis and let both the judiciary and establishment to wipe stains. All institutions and political parties should respect the constitution and parliament should be given chance to carry out electoral reforms,” he said.

Bilawal said that PPP had suffered in elections in the shape of PNA and IJI in past and now the ‘selected’. “If parliament is undermined we are ready to go into elections,” he said and expressed optimistic to win and sort out economic problems.

He said that ‘puppet’ was trying to copy Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but “you cannot be Bhutto by just waving a fake letter. The ‘hypocrite’ would take a U-turn again but the real leaders were not those who compromised on democracy, he said.

He demanded Imran Khan produce proof of foreign conspiracy. “We have struggled continuously for three years and brought no-trust move for electoral reforms and elections,” he said.

He said that Imran Khan had backed out of his commitments and his policies had given birth to unemployment, losses to pensioners, rise in drug prices and ruined the country’s economy.

He alleged that Imran Khan had broken ‘corruption’ records and neither the PPP nor the PML-N but it was the Transparency International which pointed out corruption. “This is just a ‘trailer’ and more will come to the surface,” said Bilawal.

He said that Imran Khan had been treating the long march and no-trust move as a joke.

He ran away on the pretext of novel ‘excuses’ and he dissolved the parliament and violated the constitution. He must have gone honorably, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2022