PPP chairman outlines AJK agenda, renews truth commission demands, calls for dialogue on unrest
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari addresses an election rally in Kotli ahead of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections on July 27 on Sunday. SCREEN GRAB
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Sunday promised greater constitutional rights for Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), renewed his call for a truth and reconciliation commission to address AJK’s recent unrest and urged the federal government to restore internet services immediately.
Addressing a public meeting in Kotli ahead of the July 27 elections in the region, Bilawal said the PPP would seek observer representation for AJK in Pakistan’s key constitutional institutions, including the Council of Common Interests (CCI), the National Finance Commission (NFC) and the National Assembly.
Presenting the PPP’s election agenda, Bilawal said his party stood for “the right to rule, the right to ownership and the right to employment,” adding that AJK’s natural resources belonged to its people.
Read: Bilawal criticizes the government for punishing the entire AJK for the actions of protesters
He said the proposal called for protesters to suspend demonstrations while the state halted action until an independent investigation concluded its findings.
Calling for dialogue, Bilawal said that neither the protesters nor the government representatives had responded to the proposal and called on the federal government to restore internet services, saying that ordinary AJK people should not suffer because of the dispute.
The PPP chairman also accused political rivals of victimizing his party workers through police cases and expressed confidence that PPP candidates would secure victories in the entire Kotli district.
He urged voters to give his party a stronger mandate in the upcoming elections, saying the political circumstances were more favorable for the PPP than they had been during the last polls.
Bilawal said the party had received a large number of applications from hopeful candidates, which made the ticket distribution process challenging. However, he said he had instructed the party leadership to distribute tickets only to loyal party workers.
Referring to the previous AJK election, he said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was in power in the region while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was heading the federal government. Despite these circumstances, he argued, the PPP had secured significant public support and, in his opinion, had actually won the election.
Also read: Bilawal pitches truth and reconciliation commissions for AJK
He said the situation had since changed and noted that the PPP had been in power in AJK for the past six months while the federal government was headed by “our friend Shehbaz Sharif”.
He said the PPP would not face the same challenges it had encountered in the previous election and appealed to voters to support the party in greater numbers than they had in the last polls.
The July 27 AJK elections, he said, would determine whether the people supported the PPP’s vision for greater political rights and economic opportunities in the region.
