PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi to fulfill his “constitutional and legal responsibility” in accordance with today’s court order and return to his province to take oath to CM-elect Sohail Afridi.
“You should go to KP. I will ask the Sindh chief minister to lend you his plane so that you can reach KP and fulfill your constitutional and legal responsibility according to the court order,” the PPP president said during a seminar in Karachi.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) today ordered Kundi to administer oath to Afridi tomorrow at 4 pm. The court’s decision, which was reserved today, came following a petition by the PTI seeking the appointment of the assembly speaker or any other person “considered appropriate” in place of the governor to administer the oath.
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In an apparent attack on the Punjab government, Bilawal claimed that the PPP is competing internationally and not with any city or province of Pakistan.
Bilawal said the Khairpur Special Economic Zone, established during the tenure of former Sindh chief minister Qaim Ali Shah, had earned international recognition.
He pointed out that Financial times It had also included the special economic zone among the world’s top export zones in its Global Free Zones of the Year 2025 awards.
“In the Asia-Pacific category, while the Freeport area of Bataan ranked first, the Khairpur area came second,” he said, adding that “our competition is not with any other city or province, we are competing with the world.”
The PPP scion also noted that the success of the economic zone was not an isolated case, adding that Sindh had also led the way in introducing the concept of public-private partnerships in Pakistan, an idea first outlined in the 1993 PPP manifesto by Benazir Bhutto.
“At that time also, our competition was not with any city or province of Pakistan, but with the world. This is your success and this is Pakistan’s success,” he added.
The PPP and the PML-N were locked in a war of words over flood relief when Bilawal claimed that the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) was the “only method” to provide relief to those affected by the recent floods in the country, while the PML-N’s Maryam Nawaz accused her party of “politicizing” the issue.
Giving more examples of the progress made in Sindh, Bilawal said that the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), which provides free treatment, performs the highest number of cardiac procedures in the world.
He added that even in the case of cancer treatment, “in this very city we offer free cancer treatment, which is among the most expensive procedures in the world. However, it is only available for free here in Karachi. This is also Pakistan’s success,” he said.
Speaking about the BISP, Bilawal said: “When I was foreign minister and I met leaders of various countries from Africa to Egypt and beyond, they told me that they were replicating the BISP model,” Bilawal said.
