Daily Times

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Thursday that he was not ready to compromise on former prime minister Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s principles, adding that a political system in which if party workers were not respected was not acceptable to him.

Condemning media censorship, the PPP chairman said that his party was opposed to such highhanded tactics. “PPP cannot accept a mutilated democracy where people go missing. We want democracy as it was envisioned by Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.”

He was addressing party activists at the Begum Nusrat Bhutto Memorial Hall here on Thursday to celebrate the 65th birthday of Benazir Bhutto.

With tears in his eyes, Bilawal said, “we are celebrating the birthday of Shaheed BB who laid down her life for the cause of the masses. Benazir Bhutto’s politics, life, leadership and martyrdom was also Benazir.”

“Bhuttoism cannot be finished by those who want to finish Bhuttos. Those who wanted to end Bhuttoism have been defeated at the hands of the history. PPP gave democratic system and right to the people to live respectfully. We do not believe in hate and torture but we do politics on the basis of principles and accountability,” he said.

Bilawal said that in the upcoming general elections, his party would face off the remnants of the Zia and the Musharraf eras. “The headquarters of one of the franchise is in Banigala and of the other in Jati Umra,” Bilawal said, referring to PTI chairman Imran Khan and PML-N quaid Nawaz Sharif.

“One is constructing a Taj Mahal of [ill-gotten] money, the other is hiding behind the ‘respect for vote’ [slogan]. One has violated the sanctity of the Parliament, while the other continues to look for the umpire’s signal,” Bilawal said.

Lashing out at the leaders of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), the PPP chairman said ‘political mosquitoes’ had once again attacked Sindh and every street was filled with such mosquitoes. He said some of them were disloyal to their benefactors and others were grown up over blood of their devotees. “They want to enter corridors of power from the backdoor.”

Bilawal said the sons and the daughters of the soil were out in the field to defeat ‘the mosquitoes.’

PPP Sindh president Nisar Khuhro said on the occasion that Benazir Bhutto had asked party leadership not to stand with her on truck as they wanted to kill her and she did not want to lose her party’s leadership. Khuhro said that Bilawal was taking forward the same mission and people would vote for him massively.

PPP leader Maula Bux Chandio, Farhatullah Babar and Syed Murad Ali Shah also addressed the gathering. Syed Qaim Ali Shah and other party leaders and activists of Larkana were present on the occasion. A 65 lbs cake was cut by the PPP chairman to celebrate the birthday.

Published in Daily Times, June 22^nd 2018.