PPP Women Wing Faisalabad City Senior Vice President Rubina Butt has observed that the involvement of money in politics is a post-Bhutto phenomenon, which has left an adverse impact on our social fabric. She said women should directly go to politics, as “this (politics) is in my blood as my late father Mohammad Ayyub Butt (of Baba Jee Textiles) was a popular labour leader who stood for the rights of workers well before the formation of PPP,” she said.
“He joined PPP soon after its inception because Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the first leader of the subcontinent who talked about the rights of poor and down-trodden people,” she remembered. “International Labour Day was celebrated in our house like an Eid day and a lot of jubilant workers were invited by my father to lunch or dinner to celebrate the occasion,” she said.
“My political training started at a very early age; I was just a 6th grade student when I shook hands with Begum Nusrat Bhutto during her visit to Lyallpur (later renamed as Faisalabad),” she said. Rubina Butt says she believes in the service of the community and welfare of the common man. “The involvement of money in politics is a much later phenomenon which has left an adverse impact on our social fabric,” she remarked.
“Bhutto in the 1970 elections gave PPP tickets to ordinary people. The party flags, placards, banners and other canvassing material were provided by the provincial office of PPP to its candidates,” she maintained. She says that involvement of money in electoral politics is a post-Bhutto phenomenon and all political parties must get together to wipe out this negative trend.
Rubina Butt, who has twice served as a UC councilor and once as a town councillor as well as a UC Nazim, says that it is wrong to deny development funds to opposition councilors. She has deep dissatisfaction over the municipal election system and suggests that woman should also get elected through general voting. When a woman is elected by councillors’ votes in a particular UC, she is obliged to them and cannot oppose them, she observed.
“I shall advise women to come through elections as it is easier to convince the general public instead of bargaining with elected councillors to win their votes,” she analysed. She said the women elected by councillors are ignored at the time of development funds’ allocation. Rubina Butt succeeding in the closure of a foundry, established in an urban area, after a long court battle with a businessman.
“He challenged me that he is a rich man and I challenged him that I have the wealth of my supporters. I won the case and the factory was closed,” she recollected. She also succeeded in securing the right of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP for a large group of gypsies living in her area without basic facilities. She terms Shaheed Benazir Bhutto as her role model.
my mother is true leader
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