With 'arrows' aimed at all, Bilawal wants voters to back PPP on Feb 8

• Bilawal asks people not to vote for "kite" and "book".
• He says voting for independent tantamount to wasting it.
• PML-N doing politics of division, accuses PPP leader. 

With the electioneering reaching its peak just days before the February 8 general elections, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Sunday fired salvos at all the political parties.

Addressing a public rally in Hyderabad, Bilawal urged people to vote for “arrow” — the PPP’s election symbol— if they wanted to stop the lion, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) electoral symbol.

Stressing the need for hard work, the ex-foreign minister asked the participants: “You just get PPP won [elections]. I will handle this lion.”

Taking a dig at the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) in the city, once considered the stronghold of the party, the PPP chairman advised the people that if you were asked to vote for “kite” then tell them: “[We] will not vote for those who raise anti-Pakistan slogans”.

You should say that you would rip apart the kite, he added. The PPP leader urged the people not to waste their vote by casting for any independent candidate — an apparent reference to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed candidates.

It is pertinent to mention here that the PTI candidates are contesting elections as independent candidates as the Supreme Court last month upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to strip of PTI’s ‘bat’ symbol after finding irregularities in the party’s intra-party elections.

Addressing the public rally, Bilawal also did not spare even Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), the party which was an ally of the PPP in the previous Pakistan Democratic Movement's government.

He urged the participants not to vote for "book", the electoral symbol of JUI-F, asking them not to support those who divide the nation on a religious basis.

“I needed all the seats of Hyderabad,” he tasked his party workers.

Bilawal thanked the people for electing PPP during the recent local body elections in the city and said: “There will be a rain of arrows on February 8.”

The PPP leader urged the masses to bury the politics of hatred and division with the power of vote.

Moving on to the PML-N, Bilawal said another party in the federation was doing the politics of hatred and division.

In a veiled dig at PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, the PPP leader said that he wanted to return to power for the fourth time by hook or by crook.

Slamming the PML-N leadership, Bilawal said that they did not understand people’s problems, adding that they just wanted to rule the country for the fourth time.

PPP and PML-N, two key allies in the former PDM-led government, have been criticising each other since the end of the coalition regime.

A heated war of words between the two mainstem parties escalated further as the country braces for the upcoming elections.