Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry Thursday said if the founder of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was alive today, he would have announced protest march against the corruption of the present day PPP.
In a rejoinder to the speeches of Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari at Garhi Khuda Bux, he said if the PPP respects the courts, then why and against whom they have announced to launch the protest. He advised the PPP leadership to protest against their own corruption. He said when the ‘corruption addicts’ are treated, they always resist the move.
He said today’s PPP is as much related to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as is Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N linked with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He questioned how long will the PPP leadership use the names of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto for personal gains.
Fawad made it clear that speeches, hue and cry and threats cannot save them from the accountability process. He said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had not asked the PPP leaders to commit corruption, then why they are shying away from accountability by using Bhutto’s name. “If the PPP leaders will take to the streets, the nation will hold them accountable,” he said, adding that the recent train march has already flopped. Seeing the people’s lack of interest in the protest, they tried to name it ‘Karwan-e-Bhutto’, he said. Bhutto’s ideological and true followers are reluctant to support the corrupt elements, he observed.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said it’s PPP’s right to take to the streets in protest but predicted that the exercise will prove futile because the public isn’t ‘naïve’. “If they want to take to the streets, it is their democratic right,” Qureshi said. “Without taking the law in their own hands, if they want to present their point of view, they have both the forums available. There is the parliament and they can also do it outside. The people, however, are not naive. They know who is responsible for the problems we’re facing today. They know that the entire economic crisis wasn’t created in these seven months. People are very wise. This is is a primitive mindset that makes some think that they can convince the masses with speeches and words,” he added.