Fiery speeches charge crowd ahead of heavyweights in PDM’s second power show

Pakistan Democratic Movement’s second power show at Karachi’s Jinnah Bagh is underway with the small parties’ leaders charging up a house-full venue with their fiery speech as people wait to listen to the top leaders.

PDM president Fazlur Rehman, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz are on stage. The leaders reached the venue almost at the same time, unlike the first gathering I Gujranwala and made a unified appearance to the delight of their respective supporters.

There was merriment among the charged crowd who were dancing and chanting slogans amid the beat off PPP’s anthem.

All the leaders took the incumbent over its inefficiency in governance and ballooning inflation that has made the lives of the people miserable and also re-iterated their stance of election rigging and revival of democracy in its true spirit in the country.

Awami National Party’s Ameer Haider Khan Hoti took the PTI government to task over rising inflation and cost of living.

“Imran selected Khan, ask the poor what happens when their electricity bills come, the price of food commodities, how they are buying medicines. I want to ask you where are those 1 crore jobs of yours? You talked about 1 crore jobs and 50 lac houses. And what came of it? Buffaloes, goats, eggs,” he quipped.

The ANP leader went on to say that the PDM’s aim was not to seek an NRO, as has been repeatedly claimed by government minsters, but “to look for solutions to problems such as the economy, the NFC award, protection of the 18th amendment, powers of institutions, protection of the Constitution and most of all the supremacy of parliament.”

Mehmood Khan Achakzai of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, said that opposition parties hadn’t come to hurl obscenities at people.

“We made the PDM with a lot of thought. This convoy has set out to make a new Pakistan — a Pakistan that was dreamed of by the person whose tomb is nearby.”

Achakzai said that Pakistan was meant to be a fort. “The state was supposed to be a Muslim state, where there would be justice, where power would rest with parliament, where the Constitution would be supreme and people would be independent.”

Achakzai said, "when we talk about self-reliance, we are labelled traitors". "We are not traitors, we are loyal to the land," he said, adding that "his people had fought for the country's independence".

He said PDM was not formed for mudslinging and to humiliate other political leaders but its struggle is for the rule of the masses.

Recalling the assassination of late PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and other similar incidents, Achakzai lamented that the perpetrators of terror attacks had not been taken to task up till now.

The PkMAP leader then took a swipe at the government’s accusations regarding the PDM bringing state institutions into disrepute. “We are being told not to talk about institutions. That man is saying this country is safe because our army is strong and is protecting us. Do you think the US is being upheld by Trump, Russia by Putin, Germany by that woman? It is their army [that is protecting them]? This is not a favour, it is their duty to protect the country,” he said.

"We have no issues with institutions, but when a person from that institution hangs an elected premier, shouldn’t we take his name?” he questioned, adding that Article 6 of the Constitution stated that anyone who violates the Constitution is a traitor and so is anyone who supports them.

National Party leader Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, during his speech, paid tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for their ideologies. "I pay tribute to Mir Hasil Bizenjo, as through his struggle, the Opposition parties are on a single platform," he added.

Jamiat Ahle Hadith chief Sajid Mir said that the PDM is out on the streets to "bring real democracy" to the country and to ensure the rights of the people.

JUIP chief Shah Owais Noorani predicted that 2021 would be the year of election. "The Green Line project has been halted because it had Nawaz Sharif's plaque on it," Noorani added.