ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari while greeting the nation on the occasion of the new year expressed his hopes that the new year would be the year of establishing the peoples’ rule in the country. In his message on Tuesday, Bilawal Bhutto said that the people of the country had suffered immensely owing to flawed, biased and corrupt policies of the current government. The people of the country had struggled to make ends meet and to earn a living and the poor were being victimized in a class war by those beholden to the establishmentarian elite, he added. He alleged that ‘800,000 people have been pushed into poverty by the inhumane policies of the government and astronomical inflation is condemning more to the same’. Removing 10 lakh women from the BISP rolls to much fanfare of ‘cost reduction’ by the government while its policies further mired the poorest in abject poverty was criminal, he added. The Chairman PPP also noted that this past year, India had converted occupied Kashmir into the world’s largest open air prison. The fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people were being trampled on in broad daylight and that the PPP would continue to raise the issue across the world. Bilawal Bhutto said that the coming year would see the world finally take notice of the excesses of the occupying Indian forces and that the PPP would fight for 2020 to be the year of self-determination for the Kashmiri people. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Parliamentary leader in Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman on Tuesday lashed at government for summoning a Senate session on January 01, 2020 without giving a prior 48-hour notice terming it inappropriate and said that it caused inconvenience to senators during smog season when flights are unavailable. Reacting to govt’s decision of calling Senate session on notice of less than 24-hour, Sherry Rehman questioned that how will those flying in from Sindh and Balochistan make it in the prevailing situation. “No senate session has been called in 120 days despite repeated requests and letters to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the Senate still has to meet for 56 days to complete the parliamentary year. When they finally decide to call one in, they badly mistimed it. Is this some new way to break the opposition’s strength in the Senate? –Agencies
