LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari alleges that some Balochistan leaders are striking a clandestine deal with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, compromising rights of the people of the province.

“Some politicians from Balochistan are striking an underhand deal with Nawaz Sharif, sacrificing interests of the province for their personal ones,” he told a convention of the party’s Balochistan chapter workers here on Thursday.

“The PML-N’s Balochistan government is more loyal to Takht-i-Raiwind (a reference to the Sharifs residential quarters) than the Baloch as people are being kept in the dark about many important decisions.”

He pledged to restore confidence of the people of Balochistan in democracy and announced setting up organisations of the party in the province down to tehsil level.

Bilawal, who donned traditional Baloch turban before speaking at the convention, predicted that his party would win the 2018 polls in Balochistan and that the next chief minister of the province would be a Baloch and a PPP worker.

He lamented that many in Punjab were speaking in favour of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), but no one was talking about rights of provinces in the corridor and the National Action Plan (NAP).

On the occasion, Baloch folk singers and artists performed while party activists also danced to traditional tunes.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2016