AMJAD ALI SHAH

PESHAWAR: Former President of Pakistan and Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday said that the ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will not be successful in making a government again in Punjab, adding that the PPP won’t allow rigging in the next general elections.

Addressing a gathering here, the PPP co-chairman said, “They (PMN-L) have a delusion that they will form a government again in Punjab by introducing new trains,” mocked the former president.

He said that this time his party workers would be sitting in front of every polling booth and would not leave the premises until receive results. “They would go to every corner of the country to campaign this time,” he said.

The former president said that the PPP wanted to ensure FATA’s inclusion in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, adding that the party gave Pakhtuns their identity.

Zardari said he stood for good relations with Pakistan’s neighboring countries and criticised the PML-N government for creating discord with neighbours towing the lines of ‘American foreign policy’. He asserted that while he was in power, Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and India were good and there was peace.

Zardari maintained a fire is raging in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and those governing the province are not aware of it.

“They do not know how many brothers, sisters and children are homeless in KPK,” he said. “And now the limit of tolerance has run out, their [national identity] cards are being stopped, they are being imprisoned.”

“They [Pakhtuns] are being asked why you are here in Punjab, in Balochistan and in Islamabad.”

“I am proud that Karachi is the biggest city of Pakhtuns,” Zardari said.

He added that the PPP has decided that FATA will be merged in KP, and rights will be given to FATA’s youth and women ? “the same rights that are given to women in other provinces”.

“If we are given the opportunity we will give them their rights,” he added.

In a reference to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the ruling PML-N, Zardari said, “Those who said if electricity crisis is not over in the country in three or four months, we will change our name … today, I ask the world, what should we name them?”

Zardari also said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was his dream for the people of KP, adding, “We will fulfill this dream.”

Zardari said that the NFC award was not a favour but a right of the Pakhtun nation. “We dreamt of the CPEC for Balochistan and KP,” claimed the PPP co-chairman. He also took aim at ruling party in KP, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, saying: “Immature people cannot see that KP is up in flames.”