By Asghar Ali Mubarak
Islamabad: The much-hyped Awami Long March of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Tuesday evening finally reached Islamabad’s famous D-Chowk led by party’s chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.
The central rally was received by party workers already present at the venue, as the PPP geared up to formally begin its power-show aimed at ousting Prime Minister Imran Khan from power.
Bilawal had launched his party’s march on February 27 from Karachi, as he addressed a large and charged crowd next to Mazar-e-Quaid, pushing forward the slogan of “Go Selected Go”.
Last week, he entered Punjab and addressed rallies in Gujrat to Lala Musa to Jhelum. This morning, the march entered Islamabad and finally reached Faizabad Interchange. According to the PPP official Twitter handle, the administration had reportedly put barricades at the federal capital’s Faizabad, which were later removed as more rallies of the party reached the chowk and the leadership refused to move further until the way was clear. Furthermore, a PML-N delegation led by the party’s senior leaders Ahsan Iqbal and spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb has also reached the rally’s venue.
Earlier, the opposition party had staged a sit-in at Faizabad Interchange, with leaders announcing that the Awami Long March would only move further once obstacles “created in the way are removed”.
The anti-government rally will only progress once the way is clear. The party showed a mammoth rally organised in Rawalpindi, the PPP media cell said on the microblogging site.
While addressing participants of the rally in Rawalpindi, Bilawal claimed barricades were erected to stop the party’s workers from marching onto the federal capital’s streets to reach D-Chowk as part of its Awami March against the PTI government.
He also said people from all provinces are part of the movement against the incumbent government. “We have to reach our destination and for that, we invite the people of Rawalpindi to join us and aid in the democratic effort.”
According to the PPP chief, the opposition will use the democratic weapon to remove an undemocratic person from power.
He further said that the alliance will utilise the power of the masses to oust “an incapable person from the helm”.
Bilawal told the participants that the victory envisaged by the alliance isn’t far and that the sun of democracy will rise soon.
Before concluding his address, the PPP chairman said that he is now aiming to reach D-Chowk to progress further with the agenda of the march.
According to the PPP’s media cell, workers of the party already present in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan have already blocked the roads.
Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan Muslims League-Nawaz (PML-N) have agreed to join the PPP’s rally against the ruling regime.
A day earlier, Bilawal gave Prime Minister Imran Khan 24 hours to resign and dissolve the National Assembly so that fresh general elections could be held.
He was also quoted as saying that the Awami March was coming to the capital to make the premier “jobless”, and that latter was so frustrated by the success of the long march of jiyalas that he was using abusive language and hurling threats.
However, in his recent reaction to the opposition’s agitation, PM had made it clear that he would come down hard on the opposition parties if their no-trust move proved to be futile.
According to the premier, the opposition leaders had united for the move and had been planning to oust his government to evade the ongoing accountability.
