RAWALPINDI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday paying rich tribute to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said he will complete the ‘unfinished mission’ of his mother.
Addressing a public rally at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi to mark the 12th death anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the PPP chairman reiterated his commitment to the mission of late Benazir Bhutto and pledged that he would continue the struggle with the support of Pakistani masses and the Party supporters.
Bilawal said that martyred former prime minister Benazir Bhutto struggled for the rights of general public for 30 years. He said that Rawalpindi witnessed how the people’s leader was treated, adding that martyred Bhutto gave rights to the labourers.
Bilawal said that his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave rights to labourers when he was prime minister and his mother Benazir had fought two dictators during her lifetime. The PPP chairman went on to say that Benazir Bhuto provided Pakistan with the much-needed missile technology.
“You [people] are witness that they [political rivals] used to say a woman can never be the prime minister of a Muslim country,” he said.
“You saw how she became the first female head of state of a Muslim state.”
Bilawal said the credit went to Benazir for providing Pakistan with the much-needed missile technology. He said the slain PPP leader had come back to Pakistan, before her assassination, to ensure democracy thrived in the country.
Bilawal also warned the government that 2020 will be the year of free and fair elections.
Bilawal said he would give people their due rights after ousting the government of ‘political orphans’ and blamed the political orphans for Pakistan’s ongoing economic and leadership crisis. “These are the same political orphans Benazir warned you about,” he said. “Look at how they conduct their politics. They are cowards.”
Bilawal taunted the government by saying all claims they made about politicians had proven false. “They said Mian sahab [Nawaz Sharif] will never go abroad for treatment. Mian sahab went abroad for medical treatment.
“They said President Zardari will never come out of jail. He is out of jail now too,” he said.
Bilawal urged the masses to support him in ousting “this government of selected and political orphans as the people’s rule cannot be established without the PPP”.
He said that former president Asif Ali Zardari introduced the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) for poor women, adding that government’s decision to remove 800,000 names from the BISP database is an attack on process of making women empowered. He criticised “those in corridors of power” for removing women beneficiaries of the BISP from its list and declaring them “undeserving”.
The PPP chairperson slammed the government, saying it was an enemy to the poor people of Pakistan. “People from Karachi to Khyber are protesting against inflation,” said Bilawal, adding that flawed policies of Imran-led PTI government has ruined the country’s economy,” he added.
“This is not the independence that Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave us,” he said. “We will build the Pakistan that Benazir envisaged for you.”
Before Bilawal came to address the crowd, PPP co-chairman and former president, Asif Ali Zardari, also addressed the gathering via a video message that was broadcast on a giant screen at the venue.
Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was assassinated after addressing an electoral rally at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on December 27, 2007.
Benazir was born on 21st June 1953 in Karachi to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nusrat Bhutto. She belonged to an influential political family which became a dynasty in Pakistan.
She left for the esteemed Harvard University at the age of 16 to pursue her higher education. After receiving her undergraduate degree at Harvard, she got enrolled in England’s Oxford University.
At the age of 35, Benazir Bhutto was elected the Prime Minister of Pakistan after Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) emerged victorious in the polls. She holds the honor to be the first woman Head of Government of any Muslim country.
Weeks before the general elections in the country in 2007, she was targeted in a gun and bomb attack when she was returning after addressing an election rally at Liaquat Bagh of Rawalpindi.
The attack, in which she was killed with scores of her party activists, jolted the political landscape of the country and triggered a frenzy of anarchy and arson attacks that resulted in billions of rupees loss to the country.
Benazir Bhutto is considered one of the most dynamic figures in the world politics and her struggle for democracy was posthumously honored and acknowledged in the world. – NNI