PPP Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday said his party was pleased that former premier Nawaz Sharif was returning to the country but observed that the PML-N was not preparing well enough for its supremo’s homecoming.

“The former PML-N ministers should be out there wall-chalking in the field [in joy],” he said in an apparent jab at the former PPP coalition partner while addressing a news conference in Jacobabad.

The scion of the Bhutto dynasty claimed that the former PML-N ministers, who were with the PPP, were nowhere to be seen but he was happy over its leader Khawaja Asif’s news conference earlier in the day in Sialkot in which he spoke about Nawaz returning to Pakistan and freeing the country from the shackles of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after becoming the premier for the fourth time.

“Mian Nawaz Sharif is returning to the country in a few days. We don’t want the Sharif family to bear the burden by itself. The former PML-N ministers will have to work hard now,” Bilawal said, hitting out again at the former PPP coalition partner.

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Nawaz, who had been residing in London in self-imposed exile since 2019, was scheduled to return to the country on Oct 21. He left the country for London in the middle of his seven-year jail term on medical grounds.

During his media talk, Bilawal clarified that the PPP would not form an alliance with the PTI or any other party during the upcoming general elections.

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“I have my own ideology, manifesto, and party. We must play a role in the development of Pakistan,” he continued.

The PPP chairman reiterated his desire for early general polls in the country so that the elected representatives could serve the country.

“The PPP is always ready for elections. The people should be given their right to vote,” he added.

Bilawal maintained that democratic politicians saw the solution to every problem in elections.

“If the general polls are not held, we [politicians] will all be responsible,” he claimed.

The PPP chairman said he did not think JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is also the president of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), had given a statement that the next general elections should not be held.

The former foreign minister pointed out that inflation was the biggest problem for the people of Pakistan.

He continued that petrol had become so expensive that even they (considered among the elite class) could not put up with it anymore.