Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Sunday pondered a ‘decisive’ campaign against the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

At a meeting held here at Jati Umra in Raiwind, the two young leaders also agreed not to let the federal budget 2019-20 be passed in the parliament and decided to develop a plan of action in this regard.

Following a detailed meeting between the two parties, as well as a one-on-one meeting between Bilawal and Maryam, a statement was released by the PML-N, highlighting the major areas of conversation between the two leaders. According to the statement, both leaders agreed that the country is suffering a decline in all walks of life and has been thrust into a deep quagmire of economic ruin. “All economic indicators are pointing towards an extreme crisis,” said the statement, adding that despite Pakistan being ‘mortgaged off to international financial institutions, and the charge of national institutions being handed over to strangers, the situation is rapidly worsening’.

The two sides discussed the ‘one-sided revenge tactics’ allegedly being employed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) along with the ‘targeted behaviour towards the opposition in collusion with the government’. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s all-parties conference (APC), as well as the joint strategy by both parties, was also discussed in the meeting.

“Both Bilawal and Maryam agreed that the current non-representative government does not represent the people’s true mandate,” the statement said. It was decided that talks must be held with leaders of other opposition parties so that a joint implementation strategy of the opposition can be devised. The scope of the joint implementation strategy will be extended to those parties as well who voted for the PTI in the elections or are part of its coalition but they too are not in agreement with the government’s policies, the PML-N said in the statement.

On matters of national importance, the following points were released by the PML-N in its statement: “The government should take back the reference filed against the respected judges; the references filed against judges are based on ill intent and are an attack on the freedom of the judiciary; both leaders agreed to continue to struggle for the freedom and the independence of the judiciary; both leaders asked that Speaker Asad Qaiser issue production orders of all the members of the parliament currently under arrest; both leaders demanded that the speaker give up his biased behaviour.”

Later, during a separate press conference, Bilawal Bhutto while lambasting the ‘anti-people’ budget presented by the government said it is incumbent upon the opposition to prevent the budget from passing in order to ‘prevent economic suicide’. “We view this to be an anti-people budget which is [essentially] a PTIMF budget. We have seen that IMF is deciding who will be our finance minister, our state bank governor and our FBR head. And after that, when the budget was presented, we were shocked at how the government had not left a single area which it had not taxed […] wherever they found an opportunity, they gave relief to the rich but there was none for the poor,” said Bilawal. “The budget is so bad it is economic suicide […] It is incumbent on us to stop this budget.

If the government goes, let it,” he continued. “We gave them a chance to present a people-friendly budget. We would have voted for such a budget but they presented an anti-people budget. PPP is left with no option. We will try our best to stop this [budget from passing] in the parliament,” he vowed.

Bilawal said he will start a movement on June 23 from Nawabshah where a rally will be held in commemoration of the birthday of late former prime minister and his mother, Benazir Bhutto.

Earlier, Bilawal Bhutto arrived at the Sharif family’s Jati Umra residence in Lahore in the afternoon. His visit comes on an invitation from PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and in the wake of recent arrests of former president Asif Ali Zardari and Punjab’s opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz.

Qamar Zaman Kaira, Chaudhry Manzoor, Hasan Murtaza and Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar accompanied Bilawal. The PPP delegation was received by Maryam, former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Capt (r) Safdar, Ayaz Sadiq, Pervaiz Rasheed and Rana Sanaullah.

This meeting in Raiwind came a few weeks after the leaders of the PPP and the PML-N met for iftar, in a gesture aimed at displaying a united front against the ruling PTI. Bilawal had hosted the PML-N’s top leadership including Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shehbaz, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ayaz Sadiq among others. The guests list also included representatives from other political parties such as Aftab Khan Sherpao of the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) and Mohsin Dawar of the Pashtoon Tahfuz Movement. PPP leaders Asif Ali Zardari, Sherry Rehman and Raza Rabbani were also present on the occasion.