Asif Ali Zardari has accused Nawaz Sharif of pursuing wrong policies which created a gulf distance between the PML-N government and the establishment. Addressing a large rally in Multan on Friday, the former president said the former prime minister made the mistake of appointing General Pervez Musharraf as army chief, and it was his wrong policies like this one which alienated the establishment, and therefore it is pointless for him to ask why he was forced to leave office,
On the other hand, said Zardari, when his own party came to power in 2008, it had Musharraf removed with "the people's help." He said the PPP has a clear and concrete agenda to deal with Pakistan's problems, which no other party can do because most of them were busy fooling people. He accused the PML-N government of treating the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as "a loan agency."
PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari promised at another public meeting the said the party would create a new province in southern Punjab, saying that the region had been denied its share of resources "by those who rule from Raiwind." The people of southern Punjab had been treated unfairly, he said, and almost there has been no development in the region. He questioned Nawaz Sharif's ideological leanings. "Is it the ideology that he swore at Zia's grave to defend?"
He said if the parliament has weakened, it is solely due to the wrong politics of Nawaz and his party. The PPP chairperson launched an attack on Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif. "Shahbaz Sharif, you will have to pay for your corruption, you will be held accountable for the martyrs of Model Town, you will be held accountable for the Multan Metro project and you will be held accountable for the Hudabiya Paper Mills," he said.
He advised Imran Khan to learn what he called "political etiquette." The language used by the PTI leader in his speeches can only be matched with the language of those who carried out a lengthy sit-in at Faizabad, in Rawalpindi. Bilawal said Imran's politics revolves around bringing back funds stolen from the country, but he himself is surrounded by those who keep their funds abroad.
"Imran Khan this will be my first election and it will be your last," he declared. He condemned PTI chairman Imran Khan as being "a soldier of Maulana Sami-ul-Haq," naming the head of the Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam (S), a splinter group of the one led Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Turning to the issues facing the farmers of the region, Bilawal said "we will not let Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan to ruin the agriculture industry of the country and we will introduce co-operative farming." If the PPP comes to power, he promised, there will be no GST on agriculture input.