Will he or will he not, that is the question. Will he be perceived as a shy burger kid or a street boy challenging authority? Will he be an elite icon speaking to grammarians in chaste English or an inspiration to jail hardened jiyalas? Will he give lifeless handshakes to his supporters or give them warm hugs? Will he wear Savile Row double-breasted suits or button-down shirts like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?

Will he continue to harp old tunes from the 1960s or chart out new programmes suited to the present? Will he prefer to attend balls and birthdays of the rich and high or cater to poor slums which have been the power centres for the PPP for the last 50 years?

Will he struggle to keep the status quo or prove revolutionary enough to break it? And above all, will he be brave enough to face jails and death threats or will he submit to the Authority to seek advantages?

Let’s see whether a new story has begun. Let’s judge Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the light of his recent visit to Lahore.

One thing is for sure: Bilawal Bhutto’s recent visit to Lahore was different from all previous times. This time he came out of the high security walls of Bilawal House and mingled with workers and common party folk. The high point of the visit was the Lahore High Court reception where thousands swarmed the courtyard, spellbound by his family charisma -- curious to see him up close. As he waved hands at the crowd leaving the courtyard of the High Court, it appeared as if Pakistan People’s Party’s popularity had never waned.

At the dinner at Asma Jahangir’s house, he even hugged two participants warmly recognising them as his mother’s companions and called them uncles. In his previous Lahore visits he had appeared reserved, even disinterested among emotional crowds. He used to keep mum in the presence of his father. This time he spoke with everyone who met him.

Bilawal Bhutto’s political career is not going to be easy. Even his talented and charismatic mother, Benazir Bhutto (BB), was not offered premiership on a plate. There was an eleven-year long saga of jail and other hardships that preceded it. He can easily wait for 20 years when all his political rivals with big names would fade away.

Compared to his mother, Bilawal’s disadvantage is that she only had two political poles to contend with -- the PPP and the anti PPP. Now there are three powers in the field -- PML-N, PTI and PPP. Bilawal has to face the two rivals while BB had to knock out only one.

Like his mother, he has to recreate the party and make it relevant to the ever-changing political situation of the country. Benazir Bhutto led the party when it was going through a tough time but was still at the height of its popularity. Bilawal, in contrast, has to hold the reins of the party when it is at its lowest ebb of popularity in Punjab that used to be its power hub in the past.

Benazir Bhutto always had ‘electables’ on her side as she represented one of the two major parties but Bilawal Bhutto might have to fight the next Punjab election without them.

The PML-N is a middle class party with a tilt towards the business community while the PTI too is also a middle class party representing the aspirations of educated professionals. The PPP, in contrast, used to be representative of the lower middle class and the downtrodden. It still has the field open -- to address a segment of society that is ignored by the two major political parties.

The slogan of Roti, Kapra aur Makan worked for 50 long years. Now the party has to set its social and economic agenda according to present day needs and coin a new slogan.

The PML-N and PTI mainly represent urban aspirations of the Punjab province while the demands of 70 per cent rural population hardly reach the urbanised leadership of both these parties. The farmer community is in agony for having been ignored by these parties and it recalls the "golden era of Zardari and Gilani" when the farmers were given the best prices for their crops. Bilawal Bhutto can work to assuage the farmers’ woes and gain solid support from this community.

In the past, Pakistan People’s Party was the patron of labour unions -- labour vote bank used to be a part and parcel of the party. With the passage of time, the party’s focus on labour rights has weakened. Labour and trade unions are unhappy on the privatisation of PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills and the other corporations. Bilawal can lead them and reconnect his party with the labour again. Like Tony Blair who came with the slogan of New Labour -- which was a mix of labour rights and market economy -- Bilawal has to be creative to make his party popular again in the urban areas of Punjab where the only support left is among intellectuals and hardcore jiyalas.

The best chance for Bilawal Bhutto is to improve governance in Sindh which is perceived as the country’s most badly-governed province. He could learn the art of governance by participating in the decision-making of major policies. If he struggles to improve the policies of the party in Sindh, it would help the party reclaim its dwindling image in the Punjab and KP as well.

The Sindh government seems so inefficient that despite the improvement in the law and order situation and the development of inter-city roads in interior Sindh, it is unable to project and propagate these achievements before the people. Bilawal could help rebuild the image of Sindh but it seems that Sindh government is his father’s sole domain where he is allowed to interfere up to a certain limit.

So far, he has proved wise in how he dealt with his family affairs. He has slowly but surely been securing more space from his powerful father; not showing any struggle for power though it’s very much there. Like his mother who proved herself as a more astute politician than her brothers, Bilawal Bhutto has successfully demonstrated greater political acumen compared to his sisters.

Now is the time to focus on the party and its organisation. It was the party that remained the strength of his mother in her 28-year career. If Bilawal wants to be successful, he will have to make a new team comprising pro-active loyalists and ideologists to rejuvenate the PPP.