Former president Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan is following in the footsteps of Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd) and maintained that the incumbent government has ruined the national consensus in the country.

Speaking to PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira on the coronavirus crisis and the evolving political situation in the country, Zardari criticized the government, saying that it wants to curtail the constitutional and financial powers of the provinces.

"This government is fighting the opposition instead of fighting the coronavirus," he said.

Referring to PPP's past tenure, the former president stated that when he came to power in 2008, the country was a victim of terrorism and division.

"We conducted the Swat operation through national consensus and brought peace," the former president asserted.

The PPP and the PTI have been trading barbs over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, after being criticized for the second consecutive day by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the Parliament, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had demanded of the foreign minister to either withdraw his statement against the PPP or resign from his position.

The foreign minister had earlier addressed a session of the Senate where he spoke at length about PPP's style of governance and the participation of the province in national decision-making.

Qureshi had said that the PPP was focused on only provincial politics rather than thinking for the entire country. He also said that it was not true that the federal government had abandoned Sindh.

In reaction to Qureshi's criticism, Bilawal had said that the minister had also accused him of using the "Sindh card".

Bilawal said that he had been raising his voice for issues pertaining to the provinces, without any such intention in mind.

Responding to Qureshi's comments that the PTI would make inroads into Sindh as it did in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Bilawal had had said, "What sort of politics is this? What do you mean you will prove your political mettle in Sindh?" He had said that politicking of this nature damaged the federation and it went against national unity.

Copyright Independent News Pakistan, 2020

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