The PML(N) has long accused the PPP of crassly using the memory of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto for political purposes. It appears, from Saturday’s rally, that the League wanted all along to have a go at the racket itself.
Many would find fault in PML supremo Nawaz Sharif’s speech in Larkana. It is the sort of opportunism that is usually not displayed by those in apex slots in political parties. A diatribe on an issue as sensitive as this is the stuff grassroots activists’ speeches are made of, ready to be denied by party leadership if they veer too much off-colour.
In death, they say, one finds all answers. Slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has also found more than her share of champions. The irony of the situation is palpable. In her life, she was hounded by many, even while she was in power. In addition to every election being rigged against her party, a number of charges were made up against her, many that her detractors later admitted to fashioning. She was also the victim of politics of the gutter, with many libelous attacks against her person. A political lifetime later, however, it is these very quarters (including, but not limited to, the aforementioned) that are behaving more jiyala than the jiyalas. The case of her assassination has been used as ammunition more by her opponents, not her party.
The heartening development in the whole scenario was the fact that there was no opposition to holding this rally in the PPP stronghold. This could be credited to the party as much as the fact that the latter really doesn’t have much to fear from this League in Sindh.
The process of reaching out to the people of Sindh by a Punjabi politician, however, is always a good idea and Mr Sharif should do more of it. That all will take more than rallies. An infusion of new blood in his party’s machinery in the province would be a good idea. So would getting rid of some dead wood. With the incumbency factor playing out in the Punjab against his League in the next elections, perhaps a firm foothold in other provinces is something he cannot afford to ignore.Now that she’s gone