PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Tuesday promised to connect Thar with Karachi through a railway line, as he said they would fight poverty and unemployment, adding that the masses were facing a tsunami of inflation.
Addressing a press conference in Mithi, Bilawal said the PPP had never enjoyed a level-playing field and a new “pitch” was being prepared currently. His party was ready to play on every kind of pitch, he remarked.
The PPP chairman said that the caretaker setup was responsible for organising general elections and continuing with the policies set by the pervious coalition. “We were pushed into one crisis to another during the past five years, he remarked.
He called for a maximum number of PPP candidates in the upcoming elections because, he added, it was a people-friendly party. Thar had witnessed a 50 per cent decrease in child mortality due to the steps taken by the PPP government, Bilawal noted.
The decision to be part of the government along with the PDM was taken in national, not political interests, he recalled and said that they would try to form a government after elections.
Bilawal claimed that his party was way of both the PML-N and the PTI ahead in performance. The PPP could deliver, he told reporters and added the PPP would fulfil the promise of Roti, Kapra and Makan [Food, Clothing and Shelter] – the famous slogan that enabled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to win the 1970 general elections, the first in Pakistan’s history.
Bilawal said the Centre had stopped releasing the funds [under the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award] and other heads, hindering the development projects and rehabilitation of flood affectees in the province.
He cited the example of social welfare initiatives, especially designed for the people of Thar, including the stipend for children – from their birth till the age of three. The Sindh government was supposed to provide the money in collaboration with the Centre, the PPP chairman said.
The PPP had remained a victim of character assassination meant to portray a picture that it could not deliver and was weak in carrying out development works, Bilawal said while listing the projects initiated in Thar and other parts of Sindh.
