Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) supremo Asif Ali Zardari Saturday ruled out any political alliance with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which, according to him, only came to power because PPP let it form the government.

“In response to ‘many messages’ sent by deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, it has been conveyed that we will not even go to paradise with you,” Zardari told a party meeting in Lahore. He said Nawaz Sharif is not ideologically democratic, adding, “He thinks of himself whereas we care about the country.”

The PPP leader said Nawaz Sharif was allowed to form the government only for the sake of continuity of democratic system in the country. “But, he played games with PPP after coming into power and became Mughal-e-Azam … now he sends us messages but we have told them that we won’t even go to paradise with them,” he added.

“Nawaz is busy getting the Adiala jail cleaned, without knowing whether he would be sent there or to Karachi’s Landhi jail,” Zardari said. “Nawaz flees abroad but we have to stay in the country … they run away after bankrupting the country, leaving us to take care of it afterwards.”

On the sixth federal budget presented by the PML-N government a day earlier, Zardari remarked that the sixth budget presented by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government has no legal, ethical or political value.

The need to present budget was driven by greed and political gains, Zardari said, adding that commenting on the budget holds no value. The PPP leader questioned why did the federal government present the budget for the entire year when only two months were left for its tenure to end?

Keeping in mind the ethical and legal issues, the Sindh government will announce the budget for only three months, he said. Criticising the budget allotted for Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), he remarked that the federal government would give out commission on development projects under the programme. “Has the government presented the budget for the entire year just for this commission?” he wondered.

Not involving provincial governments in PDSP projects will create a rift between provinces and the centre, Zardari said, adding that no other government has been this insensitive to the reservations of the opposition.

PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto said that by presenting a full sixth budget, the PML-N government is not only engaging in blatant pre-poll rigging but also usurping the right of the next elected government who will now only get to pass four budgets.

In his reaction, the PPP chief said that the federal government ignored the protests of three chief ministers and went ahead to present a budget, which it has no right to do if any moral or democratic value is respected, according to a statement issued on Saturday.

He said that imposing an unelected crony to present the federal budget in the parliament has exposed the ruling government’s ‘dictatorial grooming, undemocratic behaviour and sheer hypocrisy’.

Published in Daily Times, April 29^th 2018.