PPP South Punjab likely to face revolt

MULTAN: A revolt-like situation has emerged between the workers and the so-called elite leadership of the southern Punjab chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party.
Senior workers in the PPP revealed that they have decided to prepare a charge sheet against the elite class and the electables, which will be submitted to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari. “We have lost our legacy, the party has lost touch with the masses because of the elite class but we will regain our glorious past by reviving the party as an institution through the efforts of its diehard and committed workers,” they added.
The revolt has emerged since PPP stalwart Habibullah Shakir organised a condolence reference in memory of former PPP city president and former MPA Khurshid Ahmed Khan. The condolence reference had unanimously rejected the elite leadership and pledged to revive the party’s earlier glory.
A majority of workers deplored losing the legacy of study circles and decided to resume them at the grassroots level in addition to promoting political ‘baithaks’ in neighbourhoods, to teach newcomers about politics, democracy and humanity.
A senior PPP leader observed that a major reason for the decline of the party was the shift in its political ownership from an institution to an individual. “Individuals have eliminated the role of party as a political institution. The party is answerable to the electables who are bound to follow the party discipline. PPP workers have shown severe resentment against the elite for making money, enjoying perks and privileges and playing a key role in developing the commission mafia in the party,” he maintained.
“The PPP has room for the Bhutto family only because a majority of family members died of unnatural death; the hegemony of any family other than Bhuttos is not acceptable.
The PPP workers are the only assets and owners of PPP after the Bhuttos.” He observed that the salient features of the charge sheet were a demand for the separation of the party offices from the electables. During the condolence reference, the PPP workers strongly rejected the practice of allotting more than one party ticket to a family.
Meanwhile, PPP women workers are of the view that the party lost its glory by relying on the elite who distorted the party’s pro-people image among the masses. “The charge sheet will depict the loss of the workers and talk about the failure to remove gaps between the party and the masses,” they said.
“The PPP information and media office bearers will be included in the first phase of the study circles. A series of lectures will be delivered on the science of propaganda to the information wing office bearers.”