PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told a rally in Kotli on Sunday that he expects his party to form the next government in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, urging voters to deliver a stronger result than in the last election ahead of the region’s polls on July 27.
Bilawal noted that the PPP had contested and won the previous AJK election even while PTI held power at the center and argued the circumstances now favor his party further, given that the PPP has governed AJK for the past six months while allied PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif has led the federal government for several years. He told the crowd that the difficulties of the past would not repeat this time and pressed them to turn out stronger results than before. He also criticized a murder case registered against PPP candidate Javed Badhanvi and said that securing every seat from Kotli was essential to the party’s hopes of winning a majority in the AJK Assembly.
Echoing pledges he made during last month’s PPP campaign in Gilgit-Baltistan, Bilawal said AJK would have no need for protests and shutdowns if its representatives held provisional seats in the National Assembly or Senate to raise local issues directly in Islamabad. He vowed to keep defending Kashmiris’ right to own their own land and pledged to prioritize job creation for the region’s youth, pointing to the PPP’s record on employment elsewhere in Pakistan as evidence of what he could deliver for AJK.
Turning to recent unrest in the region, Bilawal said he understood the strain on police and army personnel who had been unable to return home while protecting the public, as well as the grief of families who lost young relatives during the protests. He questioned whether the dispute over the twelve refugee seats was worth weighing against the value of a single life and framed his platform around self-government, self-ownership, and employment for AJK’s people. He argued that the region’s youth want genuine change rather than a continuation of past arrangements, and while they seek recognition on the international stage, they are also looking for greater rights within the national system.
Invoking his mother, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who secured observer status for AJK at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Bilawal said he hoped to see the region granted provisional representation on bodies such as the Council of Common Interests and the National Finance Commission until a census could formalize its status, while stressing that the final decision rested with the people of Kashmir themselves.
He also revisited his earlier proposal for a truth and reconciliation commission to address AJK’s recent turmoil, saying he had received no response to his letter on the matter from either the protesters or the foreign minister he had been in contact with.
The PPP has so far named candidates for 35 of the AJK Legislative Assembly’s 45 seats, left eight constituencies undecided, and allocated two seats to its electoral ally, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl).
