By Staff Reporter
MIRPUR: Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has accused the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of working to change Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional arrangements so that Nawaz Sharif could become the territory’s premier, opening a public rift with the party that sits alongside his own in the federal coalition.
Addressing a rally in Mirpur City on Wednesday, the Pakistan Peoples Party chairman said the PML-N wanted to hand Pakistan’s prime minister the power to appoint AJK’s premier — a change he said was designed with one man in mind. “They want a citizen of Raiwind who has served as prime minister three times to also become the premier of AJK,” he said.
The allegation followed remarks made a day earlier by PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, who said, in evidently light-hearted terms, that he would ask his brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to make him AJK’s prime minister if the party won the region’s upcoming election. Bilawal’s rally speech recast that remark as evidence of a genuine constitutional plan rather than a passing joke, though he offered no further detail on how such an amendment would be pursued or when.
The exchange is notable because the PPP and PML-N govern together at the federal level, and the AJK vote — beginning July 27 — is being contested by both coalition partners against each other in the territory.
Most significant election in AJK’s history’
Bhutto-Zardari used the same platform to set unusually high stakes for the polls themselves. “I do not consider this election campaign and these elections to be ordinary,” he told the crowd. “Perhaps, this is the most significant election in the history of AJK.” He said the choices voters make would determine the territory’s future.
Much of the rest of his address leaned on his family’s political record. He pointed to his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s role in giving Pakistan a unanimous constitution, and to President Asif Ali Zardari’s part in winning provincial rights through the 18th Amendment, framing both as history-making moments he now intended to match. “I want history to remember that Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and the PPP gave the people of AJK the right to self-governance, the right to employment and the right to determine their own future,” he said.
He tied this to the PPP’s record in Gilgit-Baltistan, where he said the party had campaigned on, and delivered, self-governance, employment rights and greater autonomy — an offer he said he was now extending to Kashmir. “We have been struggling for the right to self-government for AJK globally for three generations,” he said. “Now, we have to advance this struggle for self-government within Pakistan.”
A constitutional pledge, and a warning over the 12 refugee seats
Bhutto-Zardari pledged that a two-thirds majority for the PPP would translate into a specific commitment: an amendment to the AJK Constitution addressing the concerns of both resident Kashmiris and refugee communities. He floated preserving AJK’s existing status — including its own prime minister — while creating a formal channel, potentially an observer or provisional seat, for the territory’s concerns to reach Islamabad directly. “Instead of protesting on roads, you should raise your concerns in the Centre,” he said. “This is my manifesto.”
He was sharper on the subject of the assembly’s 12 refugee seats, which he accused rival parties of treating as guaranteed wins. “When rigging occurs on those 12 seats and people think that they have those seats in their pockets, they do injustice to you,” he said, later aiming a near-identical line directly at the PML-N: “Those who think the 12 seats of AJK are in their pockets will do injustice to you.”
On the underlying question of refugee voting rights, he positioned the PPP as a middle path, saying he disagreed with those who wanted to restrict refugee representation altogether. “I say give the vote to refugees, give them representation,” he said, “but Punjab or Sindh will not decide for Kashmir; only Kashmir will decide for Kashmir.” He repeated the point in similar terms later in his speech, saying migrants should retain voting and candidacy rights but that AJK’s fate must ultimately rest with its own population.
Truth commission proposal, and criticism over internet blackout
Bhutto-Zardari renewed a previous call for a truth and reconciliation commission to address the grievances behind ongoing unrest in the territory, saying the proposal had so far gone unanswered. “Neither the government nor the protesters have responded to this proposal yet,” he said. “In our opinion, this is the only solution to this problem.”
He also criticised the suspension of internet and mobile phone services across AJK amid the protests, describing it as “oppressive” and arguing that both the state and protesters were, in effect, punishing ordinary residents. He said he had instructed the PPP’s AJK president to write formally to the region’s Election Commission over concerns that parties could not campaign on social media, and separately called on the federal government to restore connectivity before voting begins.
Response to Maryam Nawaz
Bhutto-Zardari used part of his address to respond to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, who had criticised the PPP’s governance record in Sindh during her own rally in Muzaffarabad. He rejected the PML-N’s account of its record in Punjab, saying: “They talk as if rivers of milk and honey are flowing in every part of Punjab.” He accused the party’s leadership of a narrow, Raiwind-centred view of the province, asking whether they had ever visited Cholistan, Pothohar, Rajanpur, Vehari or Dera Ghazi Khan.
According to AJK Chief Election Commissioner Ghulam Mustafa Mughal, polling will take place in three phases: Mirpur Division on July 27, Muzaffarabad Division on August 2, and Poonch Division on August 10.
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