Workers Party elects provincial leaders

Minto suggests party form permanent research committees to form data on land ownership patterns and types of farms.

LAHORE: There is a need to understand the changes that have taken place in the society over the last two decades, Abid Hasan Minto, the Workers Party Pakistan chairman, said on Sunday.

Responding to the ‘Land to the tiller’ chants, Minto said that mere sloganeering was not enough, “you need to engage people and do real work.” He suggested the party to form permanent research committees to come up with data on land ownership patterns and types of farms. “How can you form policies without thorough knowledge of the ground realities?” he asked.

Minto said that left-wing parties could not achieve anything concrete with their current strength, “Even the parties of establishment cannot dare stop the military from seizing power whenever it wishes to,” he said, adding, that military and its corporate empire were the only major power today.

He was addressing a convention of the WPP Punjab chapter at Alhamra hall on The Mall. More than 500 delegates had gathered to elect the 42 provincial committee members. Chaudary Fateh Muhammad of Toba Tek Singh was elected president and Zahoor Khan of Islamabad vice-president.

Talking about Balochistan, Yousaf Masti Khan, the WPP central committee member, said that the problems should not be blamed on the sardari system alone. He said that the sardars leading the secessionist movement had ceased firing for a month after the 2008 general elections but no one from the army or the political parties had initiated a dialogue. Instead, he said, the army attacked them whenever it saw a chance.

Aasim Sajjad Akther, an academic, stressed the importance of the role of youth in any political struggle.

He said that the young people were more than 70 per cent of the country’s population and it was a pity that a majority of them had become depoliticised. He said that the WPP would only achieve its goals if it provided the youth with an avenue to engage in peaceful political struggle.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2010.