PPP is to quit all PDM positions

KARACHI: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has announced that the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) has called upon its members to resign from all positions of the PDM.
Addressing a press conference flanked by party leaders on Monday, Bilawal said the CEC has come to the conclusion that resignations from the national and provincial assemblies should be “like an atom bomb”.
Bilawal said the PPP’s stance that the opposition should not “abandon the Parliament and the Senate battleground” has been vindicated. He said if the PPP had listened to other political parties in the opposition and boycotted the Senate elections and by-elections, it would have harmed democracy.
“We did not give the PTI government an open field to form a two-thirds majority in the Senate,” he said, adding that the government lost on its “own pitch” when the PDM candidate won from the Nowshera by-election.
He said those who want to resign from the parliament should do so. “But, no one should try to impose their will or their dictation on any other political party,” he said. “And the Pakistan People’s Party will continue in its firm, consistent opposition to the selected government that has been ongoing since day one and has not broken for a single day,” stressed the PPP chairperson.
“The Pakistan People’s Party rejects the so-called show-cause notice,” he said. “Politics is done with equality and respect,” he added.
“The PPP demands an unconditional apology to the ANP and to the PPP for this obnoxious attitude,” he said. Bilawal said the PPP stands by the ANP and would not abandon them under any circumstances. “There is no concept of show-cause notices in democratic alliances,” he said.
He spoke about the $500mn loan received by Pakistan from the IMF. “It [IMF deal] consistently targets the poor people of Pakistan,” he said, adding that the government is putting the burden on the shoulders of the poor.
He blamed the government for conducting “a historic attack” on the country’s economic independence, saying that through the draft State Bank of Pakistan ordinance that the Centre wanted to be passed, the government was ensuring that the central bank does not answer to the country.
“The PPP’s Central Executive Committee rejects it [the ordinance] and we will, even in Ramadan, start a campaign against this PTI-IMF deal,” he said.
The PPP chairman said the government’s policy on the contentious Kashmir issue is “contradictory and confusing”. He said it is the obligation of the government to represent and be the voice of the oppressed Kashmiris in their time of need. Bilawal demanded the government discuss the census results during a joint session of the Parliament. “A transparent census is necessary to empower the people of Pakistan,” he said. – TLTP