PPP told to prepare for anti-govt drive

Bilawal chairs meeting of coordination committees

KARACHI: Top leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) directed the party’s provincial coordination committee on Saturday to accelerate its reorganisation drive, and urged the party cadre to prepare for a massive anti-government campaign ‘without any delay’.

This was decided at a meeting chaired by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari at Bilawal House.  The meeting, followed by an Iftar-dinner, was also attended by members of the coordination committees of Sindh, Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

After the meeting, veteran PPP leaders Qamar Zaman Kaira, who was accompanied by Moula Bux Chandio, addressed a news conference.



Accusing the incumbent federal government of deceiving the people, he said that the government had started victimising its political opponents. “Apart from re-organisation of the party the meeting discussed issues of power outages in rural Sindh, corruption and Panama Leaks,” he said.

A consensus, he said, was evolved to start an anti-government movement.

“First, we have to re-organise the party from union council to the provincial level. This is very important,” he said.

Kaira said that the PPP had mobilised public opinion on the Panama leaks issue.

“We ask all opposition parties to devise a joint strategy on this issue, otherwise our movement will not yield the desired result,” he said.

Responding to a question on Asif Ali Zardari’s return to the country, he said: “There is no restriction on his return. He can come whenever he wants,” he said, adding that Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was now leading the party and all decisions were being made in consultation with Asif Ali Zardari and other leaders.

Sindh information adviser Moula Bux Chandio criticised the federal interior minister Chaudhry Nisar and said: “Chaudhry (Nisar) actually wants to destabilize the PML-N government. This is why he always suggests the prime minister to pursue policies which ultimately hurt the country,” he said.



PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will interview all candidates recommended by the five provincial coordination committees before the announcement of the party’s office-bearers for provincial, divisional and district office-bearers under the new reorganization process.

Earlier, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari chaired the meeting of the Provincial Coordination Committees. PPP Women Wing’s President Faryal Talpur, Jehangir Badr, Qamaruz Zaman Kaira, and political secretary to the chairman, Jameel Soomro, also attended the meeting.

Urging the party’s political cadre to prepare for an agitation campaign against the PML-N government, the PPP chairperson said: “We are ready to challenge the Nawaz government … on important issues such as Panama leaks … the people of Pakistan have been deceived and defrauded of their hard-earned money through offshore companies.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2016.