PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has defended his party's voting in favour of legislation aimed at addressing the question of appointment and re-appointment of top military posts, including the key slot of the army chief.

The Pakistan People’s Party did not vote for the extension of Chief of Army Staff, rather, it voted to make the Prime Minister powerful enough to decide whether the extension should be given or not, he asserted on Wednesday.

Talking to a select group of senior journalists at Bilawal House in Lahore, Bilawal said his party was also subjected to strong criticism for withdrawing proposed amendments in the aforesaid legislation.

“My party voted for giving the power of discretion to the Prime Minister, undoing what has been happening in the past where such powers were exercised by the military leadership.”

The chief of the opposition party said he learnt the other day that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) would now be assigned to investigate causes of the price hike. “The security institutions should not be dragged into civilian matters," he remarked.

Bilawal categorically denied if he had a meeting with Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa in connection with any political initiative or any change in the current democratic setup. His party was neither weak nor naive to be part of any such move or arrangement, he added.

To a question, the PPP Chairman said if you ask him when the PTI Government should fall, his answer would be if it has not fallen yesterday, it should fall today.

“I would wish every next day that the PTI government should fall. But under no circumstances would the PPP be part of any conspiracy or participate in any undemocratic, illegal or unconstitutional campaign to achieve this objective”.

Bilawal said the conspiracy to keep PPP away from ruling the country started when his party won 2008 general elections despite all nefarious designs of the then ruling military dictator Pervez Musharraf and similar efforts were still on.

Replying to a question, the PPP leader said that Parliament was no longer a supreme institution because no major decision was being made on the floor of the House.

“In my view, the Parliament is at its lowest ebb in the parliamentary history of Pakistan,” he observed.

Bilawal said all the national institutions must realise that state of governance was deteriorating every passing day and if price hike would continue, not only that the PTI’s Government alone would be blamed, they have to face the brunt as well.

To another questions, PPP Chairman said he had asked a question on the floor of the National Assembly how could Taliban leader Ehsanullah Ehsan escape from the high security prison, he had not received an answer till date. “This highly speaks about PTI Government’s performance,” he added.

He said tall claims were being made of projecting the cause of the Kashmiri people who were suffering at the hands of the occupation Indian forces following Modi’s action of August 5 last. “But the Prime Minister has failed to manage the Opposition to arrive at a consensus.”

When asked to comment on the murder of a senior Sindhi journalist Aziz Memon and his party’s involvement, Bilawal Bhutto denied any link with this tragic incident and offered the family of the deceased to have the investigation carried out by a Judicial Commission.

He replied to yet another question that the role of the Leader of the Opposition is very vital and in absence of Mian Shahbaz Sharif this role was missing because to narrate the Opposition’s point of view on important national issues was his fundamental responsibility.

He said there has been close cooperation and perfect working equation among the opposition political parties which no longer existed. “You can clap with two hands and one hand is unfortunately missing,” he added. It was an apparent reference to Shahbaz Sharif being away in London with no early return in sight.

He said PPP was cooperating with Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI protest movement inside the Parliament while at the same time holding different approach for a protest on the roads.