PDM leaders to discuss Multan meeting strategy today

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) leaders will gather in Multan on Sunday (today) and discuss the strategy to deal with the upcoming situation and events with regard to Nov-30 public meeting in the historic city.

Sources told The News on Saturday that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PDM Secretary General Shahid Khaqan Abbasi are not likely to attend the meeting. Bilawal has quarantined himself after being tested COVID-19 positive, while Shahid Khaqan will be in Karachi to attend a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) case hearing. He is making special arrangements for reaching Multan on time from Karachi on Monday to join the public meeting.

Sources said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi left the Multan city last week to attend a conference abroad. He is second-in-command in the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and with his absence from the city as well as the country, it would help him get himself absolved of responsibility of unfolding events in Multan in the next two, three days.

Ever since outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, Shah Mehmood had been preferring participation in international conferences through video-link, but he decided to participate physically in the 47th session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers at Niamey in an African country of Niger. The PDM Multan public meeting, second last of its first phase of public gatherings of the movement against the government before launch of a long march, has become bone of serious contention between the government and opposition. Multan is viewed as the stronghold of the PPP and the city of former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who is hosting the PDM public meeting on 54th founding day of the PPP. It would be addressed by Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif. She has been asked by her father PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif from London to go to Multan to attend the public meeting despite the death of his mother and grandmother of Maryam Nawaz. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had especially invited her to attend the momentous meeting. The Multan public meeting would also become rendezvous for Bilwal’s sister Aseefa Bhutto Zardari to make her maiden appearance in the national politics. She will also address the gathering, sources said. Tomorrow’s public meeting has the added significance due to founding day of the PPP and the party activists are demonstrating great enthusiasm to make it an outstanding success, added the sources.