Bilawal asks PM Imran to step down in ‘best interest of the country’

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to step down in the country’s best interest, saying that the people are suffering due to unprecedented inflation and unemployment.

“This [PTI] government has turned the flagging economy into sinking… unemployment and poverty are on their optimum levels due to which the common people are suffering badly,” said Bilawal while addressing on the floor of National Assembly on Tuesday.

Reminding the premier of his pledges he made during the victory speech after the general elections in July 2018, the PPP leader said that Imran Khan used to say that he would rather commit suicide instead of borrowing foreign loans.
“Now… we will not ask him to commit suicide but at least for the sake of the people he must accept his mistake and resign so that the masses could be provided relief,” he added.

He said that the ruling PTI has borrowed a highest-ever loan of the country’s history. “The government-owned State Bank has confirmed that Rs11,000 billion loans have been borrowed since the PTI came into power whereas during the last 61 years only Rs6,000 billion were borrowed.”

Bilawal also mocked lawmakers of the PTI, calling them “junior minsters”.

“Only junior ministers and state ministers attend the National Assembly sessions,” he said while expressing hope that the PM’s adviser on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh would brief the members of lower house of parliament on the current economic situation.

PTI govt will collapse on its own: Khawaja Asif

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Khawaja Asif also lashed out at the Premier Imran-led PTI government, saying the government does not seem serious in resolving the issues of the masses who have been suffering owing to the unprecedented inflation.

Asif, the former defence minister, while dispelling rumours said that his party will neither become a part of any conspiracy nor it strike any deal with anyone to topple the PTI government.

“We will wait for the time when the government will collapse itself due its corruption.”

Murad Saeed criticises PPP performance

While hitting back at the PPP chairman, Minister for Communications and Postal Services Murad Saeed said: “How can he [Bilawal] call the prime minister ‘selected’ when he himself became the chief of his party merely on the basis of will.”

Murad also said that senior Sindh government officials – some of whom have recently been penalised – were the beneficiary of the social safety net programme, Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), introduced by the government of PPP.

“The PPP did nothing to lift the poor out of the poverty,” he said while clarifying that the federal government has no intention to abolish the BISP which has been merged into the PTI’s flagship initiative – Ehsaas Programme.