AJK PM desperately campaigning for Gilani rally in UK

LONDON: Azad Kashmir’s Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed has been dispatched to the UK on a special mission to ensure a good turnout at the public rally of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Birmingham on May 12.
Pakistan People’s Party senior command ordered two key leaders of the their party’s Azad Kashmir chapter Barrister Sultan Mahmoood Chaudhry, former AJK Prime Minister, and the incumbent prime minister to mobilise their tens of thousands of clan and baradri members to welcome the Pakistani premier when he addresses a PPP gathering in Birmingham.
The AJK premier’s visit to the UK with an army of advisers, including PPP AJK leaders, advisers and ministers, is in addition to PM Gilani’s own entourage.
“PPP’s Kashmiri leaders were told to reach Birmingham and take up the responsibility as organisers of the rally and look after the arrangements. The sole purpose of these leaders being in the UK is to make PM Gilani happy. They could have stayed in Kashmir to deal with the pressing matters,” a source travelling with PM Majeed told this correspondent.
Many other PPP leaders have already started sneaking into UK to become part of the jamboree. The AJK PM has no official engagements in the UK or anywhere else in Europe during his 10-day long visit.
Birmingham has the largest share of Pakistani Kashmiris who trace their roots to Mirpur and Kotli Districts in Azad Kashmir and they have a strong political clout. PPP which once preached socialist ideology has abandoned any notion of ideological semblance, openly seeks support on the basis of ethnicity, clans and area prejudices, as far as Britain is concerned.
PML-N President Zubair Gull has announced that PML-N will be holding demonstrations against the PM’s UK visit. Radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Shia organisations are also planning demonstrations during PM Gilaniís visit.
The News tried to speak to Chaudhary Majeed many times but he was busy but one of his team members confirmed that the AJK government was fully paying for the expenses. He also confirmed that the AJK PM has no official engagements in the UK.