Daily Times

In an apparent instance of backtracking from his previous stance, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that no one was stopped from ‘taking names’ during the September 20 preparatory meeting of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

“While the all-parties conference did not decide on naming anyone, it also did not stop anyone from taking names,” he said while speaking to a private TV channel on Wednesday.

The statement comes days after the PPP chief explicitly distanced himself and his party from PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif’s stance against the security establishment, saying that he was ‘shocked’ when he heard the former premier mention the names of the army chief and ISI DG at the opposition’s rally in Gujranwala. “It [Sharif’s claims during his speech] came as a shock for me because we don’t usually speak this way at rallies,” the scion of the Bhutto dynasty had said in an interview with a British media outlet published on Friday, exposing cracks within the opposition alliance.

Bilawal had further said naming the military leadership was not on the PDM’s agenda decided during an all parties conference held before the Gujranwala rally and he was waiting for Sharif to present evidence to back up his claims. Neither Sharif nor his party had informed the other parties in the PDM during the preparation of its agenda that they were going to mention the names of the military leadership, he had maintained.