PPP co-chairman in Lahore: Zardari directs party leaders to hold workers in highest esteem

Former president tells workers he will be personally overseeing party activities in Punjab.

LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has given instructions to PPP office bearers to hold party workers in the highest esteem.

Addressing PPP workers and leaders at the party’s Punjab Secretariat on Wednesday, Zardari said he had issued the reminder because workers were an invaluable asset of the party.

Zardari was received by PPP Punjab president Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo and secretary general Tanvir Ashraf Kaira on his arrival at the party’s Model Town Secretariat.

Zardari told workers that he would be personally overseeing the party activities in the Punjab and monitor the performance of the workers.

“This is a clear message to the party’s rank and file that workers should not be ignored. Those who have been trying to run the party over mobile phones would have to leave drawing-rooms and go to the party workers and common people if the party is to be restored in Punjab. The co-chairman has conveyed this message to all,” a senior PPP leader accompanying Zardari, who did not wish to be named, told The Express Tribune.

During the visit, the co-chairman praised the efforts of the PPP workers and the management for making the Foundation Day Convention a success.

Wattoo thanked the co-chairman for the visit to the secretariat, adding that the Punjab leadership was grateful to him for setting up PPP Punjab Secretariat on a permanent basis.

He informed the co-chairman that the workers and the office bearers had enthusiastically engaged in Foundation Day ceremonies and in decorating the city with PPP flags and banners.

He stated that the PPP workers were motivated and the party would be in a stronger position in the future to win a sizeable number of seats in the province.

Later, the co-chairman went around the secretariat building to see the working of the different sections. The PPP workers there were excited to see him among them.

After the visit, Zardari and Wattoo went to the residence of Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, the former Punjab governor, and had lunch with him.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2014.