LAHORE: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday lent his support to the rising chorus of demands for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation following the revelations made in the report submitted by the Panamagate joint investigation team (JIT) to the Supreme Court on Monday. Bilawal, who was addressing a press conference in Islamabad following a huddle of party leaders, also suggested that a case should be filed against Nawaz. He added that the prime minister had lost all ethical and legal grounds to retain the office. “They [the Sharif family] used to say that we’re presenting accounts for the last three generations for scrutiny — what we have found instead is that the report has exposed all three generations of the first family as thieves,” he remarked at one point. “The rule of law should be equal for all. It shouldn’t be that if a reference is filed against a politician from Sindh, his name is immediately placed on the exit control list, but the rules keep changing for the people of Punjab,” he observed. To a question of whether the PPP may launch a grassroots agitation movement, the PPP chairman said that his party was devising its future course of action and “all options are being considered”. Bilawal said he had also directed Opposition Leader Khurshid Shah to contact all opposition parties and devise a joint strategy on the issue. Recalling his party’s victories in by-elections on Sunday, Bilawal expressed confidence that the PPP would sweep the next general elections, “whenever they are held”.
Published in Daily Times, July 12th , 2017.
