Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari while addressing a public gathering on Friday urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to halt the controversial canal project in Indus River.
Tensions between the coalition partners are rising on the project called Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI). Under this project, six canals will be built across the country to irrigate millions of acres of barren lands costing around $3.3 billion.
The project was launched in 2023 by Chief of Army Staff General Syed Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The ambitious project aims to build canals across all four provinces; however PPP has outright rejected the development, arguing that it infringes on Sindh’s water shares.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif [Sahab], this is the demand of the people, not just ours,” remarked Bilawal Bhutto on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s 46th death anniversary at Gari Khuda Bakhsh.
“If we are to stay united as brothers, the project must be withdrawn,” warned the PPP chairman.
Majority of political parties, civil rights groups and nationalists parties have condemned the canals project by staging protests across Sindh.
PPP has expressed its reservations on the project multiple times, with President Zardari also cautioning lawmakers during the joint session of the Assembly that the government’s “unilateral decisions” were “straining the federation.”
“This project was opposed even in the joint parliamentary session by President Asif Ali Zardari. We are unhappy with the government over the canals project, which is why we are not part of it,” stated Bilawal.
Bilawal Bhutto further criticised the founder Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan, saying, “When Canal projects were initiated by prisoner number 804, PPP was the only party resisting them while others remained silent.”
“They want to break the Indus River to divide us, but we will not let that happen,” stated the former foreign minister.
