Karachi: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over his failure on domestic and foreign policies and demanded that he appoint a foreign minister with immediate effect.

The chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was addressing a public rally at Reharki, a town in southern Sindh province, inhabited predominately by Hindu citizens, to mark the religious festivities of Diwali.

“Your policies have pushed Pakistan into isolation in the international community,” Bilawal said, without naming the prime minister.

“I demand you [appoint] the foreign minister immediately,” he added.

He also criticised prime minister Sharif for his allegedly lenient outlook towards Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Sharif’s errant policies helped him make inroads even in Islamic countries.

The policies of the Prime Minister, Bilawal said, had up set the Pakistani stance on Kashmir but he was not able to find an able person during his three years in power to fill the role in the foreign ministry.

“If you want to learn the diplomacy, take out the old files of the ministry to see how the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto negotiated and retrieved 5,000 square miles [12,949.94 square kilometres] of land from India,” Bilawal said, referring the Pakistani deal with India in post the 1971 war.

“See the annals of history, how he managed to bring 90,000 prisoners of war back home,” he said.

Describing the law and order situation in the country, Bilawal said terrorists are murdering the nation’s mothers, sisters and children as well as the officials of law enforcement agencies.

“But what the government was doing to tackle the terrorism, except issuing condemnation and doing photo sessions on the demise?”

He added the prime minister was named in the biggest-ever financial scam of the country, the Panama Papers, but he has never considered himself accountable to the nation.

“Mian sahib, you are the elected prime minister and your are not a monarch,” he said.

The PPP chairman said that in the country the poor were getting poorer day by day and the Prime Minister was piling wealth for himself.

“”We are here to take care of poor people, the farmers and the workers,” he said.

Rally participants said Bilawal came to town to convey a message to Modi, that all the religious units live in peace and respect each other. “Diwali marks the defeat of hatred. It marks the victory of love.”