PPP yet to find new Karachi chief

Karachi
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership has not been able to announce its new Karachi division president since it sacked Abdul Qadir Patel from the position on March 20.
With the assistance of the party’s other leaders, Senator Saeed Ghani, Rashid Rabbani and Waqar Mehdi, PPP divisional secretary general Syed Najmi Alam has been running the party affairs in the city, The News has learnt.
Interviews with provincial and divisional leaders of the party suggest that Patel will not be restored and the party leadership is considering the names of Ghani, Alam and Senator Taj Haider, provincial secretary general, for that position.
However, Abdul Lateef Mughal, the party’s divisional information secretary, has said the PPP will announce its new Karachi president soon.
Apparently, Patel was suspended on the directives of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah over his remarks at a gathering in Malir commemorating the death anniversary of PPP leader Abdullah Murad on March 6 against the leadership’s decision to form an alliance with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement as well as over the allotment of tickets to Rehman Malik and others for the Senate elections.
Insiders claim that the party leadership has asked Patel to resign from the presidentship and leave the country. “The party leadership fears that possible further revelations from Lyari’s banned People’s Aman Committee’s (PAC) supremo Uzair Jan Baloch could create problems for Patel for this alleged links with Lyari’s criminal groups,” said a PPP leader from Lyari.
Of late, the party’s co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, has been busy meeting with the party leadership of all the six districts separately at the Bilawal House, which indicates he wants to restructure his party in the city before the local bodies elections due in September. He also recently met Pashtun elders of the city in the Masan Road area of Keamari at the residence of former provincial transport minister Akher Hussain Jadoon.
The PPP Karachi chapter, in a meeting held on March 31 and headed by Alam, has formed several committees for the local bodies elections in the city.