Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Saturday said if the opposition wants to hold public rallies during such a tough times they can do so, but the government is focused on dealing with the floods only. “I have postponed my Europe tour as my priority at this time is to support the flood affectees,” a private TV channel quoted him as saying.
He said that their priority at this hour should only be assisting flood victims regardless it comes from provincial or federal government as politics could be done later. He also lashed out at ex-PM Imran Khan for holding public rallies in different parts of the country when there is calamity of unprecedented nature.
During an interview with BBC Urdu, he said due to the monsoon rains in the country; Balochistan, South Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit Baltistan have suffered severe damage but Sindh province has been hit the hardest where each district has been declared disaster-hit.
Speaking on the magnitude of damage by floods, he said at least 80,000 families have migrated from Larkana only – his hometown – after getting displaced. Bilawal said after incessant rains continuing for days now, the people are now migrating towards dry lands as he vowed to provided tents and shelter to them at schools, colleges, or any government building. He said that no government in the world could alone cope with a calamity of such scale. However, he added that once a government encounters such a crisis, everyone tries to help with what he could.
Criticizing Imran Khan, FM Bilawal said that Imran – either being in power or in opposition – never took interest in helping Sindh. He recalled that when the people of Sindh were affected by floods in 2020 and Imran Khan was the prime minister, he did not lend a helping hand to them.
“He [Imran Khan] is playing jalsa jalsa even when his own province [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – where PTI is in power] was facing floods. This is very deplorable in my opinion,” FM Bilawal said. Bilawal said he has never seen such apathy in the world that when such a natural disaster hit, so many people and areas are affected and politics is done. “When there is an earthquake or flood, the whole country tries to help the affectees together,” he added.
