Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari rejected speculation on Monday that he was ready to be ‘selected’, and added that a “political family in Lahore” had such a history.

Speaking to reporters alongside Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Siraj ul Haq at the party’s headquarters in Mansoorah, Bilawal said, “This process of being selected is not in our veins but another family in Lahore has had that history.”

When asked if Maryam Nawaz was referring to him by saying that “another selected was being prepared,” Bilawal said:

“I have arrived here at the Jamaat-e-Islami’s headquarters today and am speaking to you with Siraj-ul-Haq Sahab. If I wanted to comment on the PML-N’s vice-president, I would have asked my [party’s] vice-president to comment on it,” he said. The PPP chairman further added that his party was ready for the long march and had already booked rooms in Islamabad for the purpose. “Whose idea was it to link the long march with resignations 10 days before it was to take place? And even if someone wanted to link resignations with the long march, then it should have been done when all decisions were being made,” he said. Bilawal also said people whose decisions proved wrong should review them. “It was the PPP’s position that [the PDM] should contest the Senate polls and by-elections. By doing this, we gave the government setbacks,” he said. JI Chief Siraj-ul-Haq called for a single institution that would hold everyone accountable. “This is the first government which is asking for the chief election commissioner to resign,” he said.

Siraj stressed the need for electoral reforms, saying that without them episodes like the Daska by-polls would happen again. The two leaders agreed to work together on the issues of occupied Kashmir and electoral reforms.