SUKKUR: Soon after the PML-N and MQM-P announced an electoral alliance in Lahore on Tuesday, PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, without naming the two parties, said he welcomed his opponents and their intentions to stand in the elections.

He said PPP would field its candidates against its opponents in the elections.

Addressing a party meeting at Gohar Palace in Khangarh town of Ghotki, the former president said his party didn’t oust former prime minister Imran Khan to gain power but to resume “stalled progress”.

He said the movement against Mr Khan was started for the rights of people as he “was not delivering and developing the country”.

In April 2022, PPP and a multiparty coalition Pakistan Democratic Movement, which included PML-N, JUI-F, BNP-M and other parties, removed then-PM Khan through a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly.

Mr Zardari claimed that the PTI government “neither knew how to do work” nor was it getting anything done that could’ve benefitted Pakistan.

Earlier, the former president reached Khangarh via helicopter on the invitation by PPP leader Ali Gohar Khan Mahar.

Mr Mahar belongs to the influential Mahar tribe — a dominant political force in Ghotki. Until last month, he was part of the Grant Democratic Alliance, an anti-PPP coalition comprising five parties. Since then, he has re-entered the PPP’s fold.

On the occasion, he said even after he buried his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, he had raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan Khapay’.

Talking about his party’s performance during the 15-year rule in Sindh, Mr Zardari claimed the PPP government had increased the number of bridges in Sindh from one to seven.

“Instead of making excuses, work should be done to strengthen economy,” he said, adding that whenever he spoke, it was “in the country’s interests”.

He lamented that people of Palestine were being oppressed.

He alleged that the current government was not doing enough for the oppressed Palestinians. “We feel their sorrows, but it will not do. We have to help them.”

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2023