ISLAMABAD: Promising to unlock the employment potential of Gilgit-Baltistan’s youth, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari urged the people of the region on Friday to vote for his party on June 7 with a majority for the right to self-rule, the right to ownership and the right to employment.
“PTI workers and supporters should also vote for PPP for the right of ownership. Our friends (PMLN) should also be a part of our convoy,” he said while addressing a grand election rally at the Aga Khan Polo Ground in Gilgit on Friday. First Lady of Pakistan Bibi Aseefa Bhutto Zardari was also alongside the chairman during his address to the charged PPP supporters.
This was the last rally of the 2026 election campaign for Gilgit-Baltistan. Polling will be held on Sunday, June 7.
He said the PPP is working on three principles: it wants to give the GB people the right to property — for which his party has been struggling for three generations — the right to self-rule, and the right to employment. “Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto abolished the FCR and provided subsidies. Shaheed Bibi made politics possible in GB, and all parties are doing politics in GB because of Shaheed Bibi,” he said.
In his address, Bilawal said he had spent a whole month in Gilgit-Baltistan during the last election campaign, visiting every tehsil and presenting his manifesto, and the people had made him successful. “But at that time the situation was different and your vote was robbed. This time I have come to you with First Lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari. You have to bring Form 45 and we will not allow injustice to be done to you,” he said.
The PPP chairman said he wanted to take the First Lady on a tour of the entire Gilgit-Baltistan, but this time, given the circumstances of what is happening in Palestine, Lebanon, Arab countries and Iran, the GB has to decide who should represent them. “In these circumstances, only the PPP can represent you. It is also important that the voice of GB is conveyed to Islamabad and the world, and there is no one better than President Zardari to represent you,” he added.
The PPP chairman said other parties make rich people richer, but the PPP focuses on the poor so that the downtrodden can be taken care of. He said the last time GB youth got employment was during the PPP government. Bilawal said the PPP wants to initiate a housing scheme in GB like the one in Sindh. “Just as we have spread the network of heart, liver, kidney and cancer hospitals across Sindh, similarly, we want to lay a network of such hospitals in GB as well. Our policy will bring you economic justice,” he said.
Addressing the crowd, he said the people must convey these three basic principles — right to self-rule, right to ownership and right to employment — to the GB people and come out in large numbers on June 7 to vote for the PPP.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) desperately awaits any outcome of its petitions and application filed in the Chief Court in relation to its identity in the Gilgit-Baltistan elections, slated for tomorrow (Sunday).
Since a decision on its intra-party elections is still pending, the PTI has fielded its candidates as independents, as it had done in the last general elections held on February 8, 2024.
According to party sources, PTI candidates organised corner meetings, rallies and even public meetings at some GB places, as the poll campaign is set to end tonight.
Sources said the party’s lawyers are waiting in the GB court for any hearing date for the petitions and application that had been filed. These include a plea for the Gilgit-Baltistan Democratic Party and accepting all ticket holders as party candidates, issuance of NOC and a bail petition for workers who were arrested under 3-MPO.
Moreover, they pointed out that an application has also been filed for the issuance of a copy of the notification which states that political leaders need NOCs to enter the GB, as well as for the issuance of a letter from the Election Commission which bars the Gilgit-Baltistan Democratic Party. However, they regretted that unfortunately no petition or application has been entertained, nor has any date been given by the Chief Court.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) leader and Member National Assembly Sheikh Aftab Ahmed said that people of Gilgit-Baltistan will lay the foundation for the province’s development by electing PMLN candidates with a heavy majority.
Talking to media representatives in Attock, he said the PMLN leadership had always given major development projects to the country, and work on major projects would also be initiated in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Sheikh Aftab Ahmed appealed to the GB people to vote for PMLN candidates with a heavy majority for their development, prosperity and resolution of their issues so that the problems of the province could be addressed on a priority basis.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has strongly rejected India’s critical remarks on the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan, calling them baseless and part of a familiar pattern of Indian propaganda, while reaffirming its longstanding position on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
“Pakistan categorically rejects India’s baseless remarks regarding the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan. As a global leader in propagating fake narratives, India’s outlandish claims are part of a familiar and carefully choreographed attempt to conflate fact with fiction. We unequivocally reject this latest Indian rhetoric with the contempt it deserves,” the Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.
The spokesperson said India’s unfounded assertions regarding Gilgit-Baltistan cannot divert attention from the grave and systematic human rights violations being perpetrated by Indian occupation forces in the IIOJK. The continued impunity enjoyed by Indian forces under draconian laws imposed in the IIOJK is another dimension of the state terrorism being perpetrated by India against unarmed Kashmiris, he added.
Pakistan calls upon India to vacate all occupied territories, reverse all illegal and unilateral actions taken in the IIOJK, particularly since 5 August 2019, repeal all draconian laws, and allow access to neutral observers, international human rights and humanitarian organisations and the international media to ascertain the situation on the ground.
