KARACHI - The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has decided to launch young party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the parliament through vacating a seat in Larkana.
This is seriously being considered at the highest level in the party and the suggestion could materialise any time in near future, sources said on Thursday. Expectedly, the party high command will ask MNA Muhammad Ayaz Soomro to resign and vacate NA-204 Larkana seat so Bilawal could enter the national assembly through by-election.
When contacted, PPP’s provincial general secretary Taj Haider said he was unaware about any such development. “I don’t know if any decision has been taken by the party to give entry to the young chief of the party in the national assembly through by-election,” Taj said. Despite repeated attempts, neither Ayaz Soomro nor Bilawal House spokesman Jameel Soomro attended call on their cell phones.
The PPP has already announced that Bilawal will lead the election campaign in the next general elections in 2018 but suggestion were under consideration to give entry to the young party chief in the national assembly to learn the parliamentary politics through participating in the assembly proceedings.
The party is probably following the example of Rahaul Gandhi of Congress party in neighbouring India, who got the entry in parliament under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
MNA Ayaz Soomro is a former law minister and some reports on electronic media claimed that he would be inducted in the provincial cabinet as adviser to CM for law after vacating the national assembly seat. The NA-204 constituency of Larkana has been a PPP stronghold and was previously won by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.
But party sources say that Bilawal himself was more interested in contesting bye-election on NA-206, on which his mother Benazir Bhutto fought elections since 1988 and she had been continuously winning this seat.
However, NA-206 is currently being held by MNA Faryal Talpur, the sister of Asif Ali Zardari and aunt of young Bilawal, so it is expected that party will ask Ayaz Soomro to vacate the NA-204.
The final decision is likely to be made public today (December 27) during public gathering at Garhi Khuda Bux Bhutto on Shaheed Benazir’s death anniversary.
Bilawal ignorant of
Constitution: JI
Staff Reporter from Lahore adds: Assailing the PPP chairman over his statement that he wanted to see a Christian as prime minister of Pakistan in his life, JI Deputy Secretary General Farid Ahmed Piracha said Thursday that Bilawal’s remarks reflected his ignorance about country’s Constitution and the Two-Nation Theory.
In a statement here on Thursday, Dr Farid Piracha said under the Constitution given by Bilawal’s maternal grandfather, ZA Bhutto, only a Muslim could be the prime minister of Pakistan, as Islam was the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan although the minorities enjoyed religious freedom and equal rights under the Constitution.
The JI’s central leader said that Bilawal was still a youth and had to learn a lot during his days to come. Therefore, he should refrain from issuing statements that went against the religion and the Constitution.