PHOTO: AFP
The party’s top leadership has been giving final touches to arrangements, as thousands of ‘jiyalas’ of Benazir Bhutto – the first woman prime minister of Pakistan – are expected to throng the venue to observe her 12th death anniversary.
Located at a busy place of Murree road, Liaquat Bagh stands in the annals of the country’s history with assassinations of prominent political leaders.
The country’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated on October 16, 1951, when he was addressing a gathering of 100,000 at Company Bagh (later renamed Liaquat Bagh) in Rawalpindi.
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Record says the murderer Said Akbar was an Afghan national and a professional assassin.
On March 23, 1973, the Federal Security Force, a paramilitary force attacked a public opposition rally of Awami National Party led by Wali Khan at Liaquat Bagh, killing dozens of ANP workers.
Wali Khan narrowly survived the attempt.
And lastly, Liaquat Bagh again attained the bloody imprints with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack after she ended her address to a public rally at the same garden.
Her spouse and former president Asif Ali Zardari, who used to deliver the main speech, may skip the event as he has been out on bail in a NAB reference, in addition to undergoing treatment at a hospital in Karachi.
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His son and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will be the main speaker at the rally. He will more probably be accompanied by his sisters Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari and Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari.
The PPP had to approach the court after the district administration refused permission to the party to hold the rally, citing security reasons.
For political observers, it will be a test case for the party leadership to be able to make a big show at the spacious Liaquat Bagh since the party has only progressed backwards, especially in Punjab.
The sharp dip in the PPP’s vote bank in the province from where it got a massive mandate in the 1970, 1988 and 1993 elections had been setting in for long.
It is difficult for the party to remove the corruption tag that has discredited it for long. On top of it, the so-called policy of reconciliation under the embattled leadership of Asif Zardari reduced it to a toothless entity.
Therefore, to remove the stigma, the PPP leadership is putting in extra effort to demonstrate the party’s strength in northern Punjab.
The leadership is at pains to tell its opponents that the PPP still a force to be reckoned with and rules people’s hearts.
(With input from News Desk and APP)
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