Show of strength: PPP workers enroute to Karachi for meeting

‘We may be minorities but ours is the largest group joining the rally from Punjab’.

LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto’s public address on October 18 will determine the direction of progressive and liberal political forces and retrogressive forces in the country, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo said on Friday before his departure for Karachi.

He said the PPP represented the poor – the haaris, the farmers, labourers, minorities, students, the youth and marginalised communities – while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehrrk-i-Insaf represented the upper and upper-middle classes.



He said party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari had toured the Punjab for two weeks during which he met with party members and workers of all ranks and files. He said Zardari had infused the party with a new spirit. “This will be instrumental in making the PPP the largest political force in the country once again.”

He said the PPP would not waver from its resolve to uphold democracy; the Constitution and rule of law. “These three are the legacies of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto... they must be upheld without the slightest hesitation,” Wattoo said.

A Karachi-bound train carrying PPP workers departed from Lahore on Friday. Separately, members of PPP’s minority wing left for Karachi onboard two buses from Lahore. “We may be part of Pakistan’s minority communities, but our group today is the largest leaving for the rally from the Punjab,” Napoleon Qayyum, who led the group, said.

“Women from all parts of the province have joined the PPP Women’s Wing delegation leaving for the October 18 procession in Karachi,” Tasleem Chaudhry of the Women’s Wing said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2014.