Bilawal blasts Qureshi over anti-PPP remarks.

Byline: Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday blasted Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi over his remarks in the Senate in which he had accused the PPP of trying to play the Sindh card during the coronavirus situation in the country, asking the minister either to retract his statement or resign.

'I want the [foreign] minister to take back his words. If he can't take it back, then resign. Such statements are damaging the federation,' said the young PPP chairman during a news conference at Zardari House hours after the Senate proceedings where the foreign minister, while responding to the criticism by PPP's Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, had lashed out at the PPP and accused it of fanning provincialism.

Mr Qureshi, who had served at the same position during the last PPP government under former president Asif Ali Zardari, had made more or less the same remarks during the National Assembly session on Monday, but the PPP chairman, who had spoken after the minister's speech, had not responded to him in the same tone which he used at the press conference.

'This is not the PPP of the past, which was a symbol of the federation. Today, I sense the roots of provincialism in the party,' the foreign minister had stated.

'Karachi is as much ours as it is yours. Sindh is ours. Sindh's capital is ours; even now the people of Karachi support PTI and our allied party MQM,' he said, asking the PPP to 'get ready' as the PTI would also make inroads in Sindh, 'just like we did in Punjab and KP'.

FM terms PPP chief's tirade 'childish'

Mr Bhutto-Zardari 'condemned' the minister's remarks and termed them 'unacceptable'.

'When I talk about Sindh, they accuse me of playing the Sindh card. But when I talk about Balochistan or Khyber Pakthunkhwa or Gilgit-Baltistan or Azad Kashmir, they don't accuse me of playing the provincial card,' he went on saying.

The PPP chairman regretted that the minister was issuing such statements at a time when they needed 'national unity'.

'At a time when I am extending my hand for cooperation, they are slapping me,' he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said that at a time when they were trying to save the people from coronavirus, 'this man is talking about proving political mettle'.

The PPP chairman then claimed that he knew the reasons as to why Mr Qureshi had left the PPP.

'When he was our minister, we know who approached him and fueled his dreams of...