ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari criticized the government on Thursday for removing more than 800,000 beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).

The PPP chairman accused the government of “doling out government benefits only to the moneyed class” saying it was creating poverty and unemployment in the country.

“The PTI government has taken total U-Turns on its pre-election promises of providing 10 million jobs and 5 million houses. Instead, it is overseeing mass unemployment, mass homelessness in the name of ‘anti-encroachment’, and multiplying poverty through its ruthless anti-poor policies,” he said.

Bilawal was quoted as saying it was ‘criminal’ of the government to not utter a word on the women’s mistreatment.

“The BISP is a lifeline to those women who often had to sacrifice their own dinners in order to ensure their children didn’t sleep hungry. This assault on the livelihoods of the poor and on Pakistan’s only social safety net goes to show the callousness of the PTI regime. Every member of the government, who remains silent on this step, is equally complicit in this economic murder of poor people,” he said in a statement.

He warned the government that the PPP “would fiercely oppose” the decision at every forum and will not allow the implementation of its anti-poor and anti-women policies.

The government says that the names on the BISP list were of ‘non-deserving’ people hence they had to be removed.

A day earlier, Dr Nishter had shared in a post on Twitter that the federal government had given approval for removing 820,165 BISP beneficiaries.

“Using forensic data analysis, we found that they [the beneficiaries] were ineligible for [income] support based on the criteria,” she had tweeted.

She had claimed that the removal would save Rs16 billion annually.