PPP expects better performance in Gilgit Baltistan polls: Sherry

ISLAMABAD          -       Pakistan People’s Party expects to perform better in the upcoming general elections in Gilgit Baltistan, senior leaders said.

PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman said that the people will not vote for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as the PTI had failed to deliver. “Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will lead the election campaign and we hope to win the elections,” she said while speaking to The Nation.

The Senator said the PPP will move the workers for the Gilgit Baltistan polls. Criticising the federal government, she said, the first task was to unite the country but the rulers were dividing the nation.

The Federal government needs to realise that they will be held responsible if the death toll increases because it will be due to their lack of planning, she added.

“What Pakistan needs at this time is decisive leadership so, will the Prime Minister of Pakistan please step forward and take responsibility,” she said.

This week, a Parliamentary Board headed by PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was constituted for the awarding of party ticket to candidates for General elections in GIlgit Baltistan,

The members include Faryal Talpur, Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Amjad Hussain, Syed Mehdi Shah, Engr. Ismail and Muhammad Musa. Nayyar Bokhari told The Nation that the election campaign would be launched after the finalisation of the candidates. “We are determined to do better if there is no interference by the PTI government,” he maintained.

Meanwhile, Dr Nafisa Shah, Information Secretary Pakistan Peoples Party rejected govt’s plan to run PIA’s Roosevelt Hotel in New York under a joint venture with the private sector.

“Firstly the timing is totally wrong for such an exercise. Real estate prices have gone down by a third in New York. Therefore any form of disinvestment, or sale, or mixed ownership, call it joint venture or privatization when our state assets have lost their value is ill-advised,” she said in a statement.

Secondly, she said, “what is the objective of the joint venture? It is unlikely that profits will increase with Covid19 crisis in the world.”

Nafisa Shah said: “In our view this suspicious, untimely and ill-advised move will compromise PIA’s ownership of the hotel without accruing any benefits to the state. It seems it is just another example of cronyism and vested interests driving a harmful venture and must be immediately ceased.”

She said that the PPP “will consider this a daylight robbery if this property is sold in any form when the prices are down in the market.”