Will provide people of Gilgit-Baltistan constitutional rights: Bilawal

Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday claimed that he will provide the people of Gilgit-Baltistan their due constitutional rights which they have been deprived of for over 70 years.

While addressing a jalsa as part of his political campaign ahead of the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly election on November 15, Zardari said that if elected, the PPP will not only turn G-B into a province but it will also transform the lives of its people, reported Geo News.

"The PPP will ensure that Gilgit-Baltistan will be given a provincial status within three months after the election....aside from giving the people of G-B their due constitutional status, we will also bring about an economic revolution through the provision of employment opportunities," he said.

The PPP chair claimed that hundreds of young, degree-holding job aspirants from Gilgit-Baltistan are still looking for employment but the government is not doing anything for them.

"When the PPP government was in power, it not only created jobs for all Pakistanis but many people were also given a chance to go abroad and start a career there," Geo News quoted Zardari.

"We will not abandon the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. It was the PPP-led government that increased the salaries of our fearless soldiers who are defending the country by guarding its borders. We gave Pakistan army a 175 per cent increment in their salaries. No other government did that," he added.

The Imran Khan government had earlier announced granting provisional province status to the region, which was not received well by the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, who have protested against Islamabad's decision of integrating the illegally occupied region with the rest of Pakistan.