The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is all set to hold a demonstration against electricity load shedding by setting up a camp in Lahore’s Nasser Bagh area on Thursday. Earlier, the PPP had decided to hold its protest camp at Minar-i-Pakistan-the venue where Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif held a protest camp against load shedding when the PPP was in power. However, the PPP was not allowed to set up its camp at Minar-i-Pakistan by the Punjab government due to which the party changed the venue for the protest.
“We tried to avoid confrontation with the government by changing our venue, even though, we have reservations on holding our protest here,” PPP Central Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira said. He was of the view that the PML-N holds its gatherings at Minar-i-Pakistan when it wishes to, but the PPP has been barred from using the ground as its venue for the protest. “They say that the game of PPP is over in Punjab. I ask them that if what they say is true, then why are they being unnerved and have barred our party from staging a sit in at the venue of our choosing,” Kaira said, while referring to the Sharif brothers. Qamar Zaman Kaira visited the venue for the PPP’s camp on Wednesday to oversee the arrangements there with Central Information Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor and Information Secretary of Punjab Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. He was also accompanied by PPP’s Lahore leadership; former President of the Lahore chapter Samina Khalid Ghurki, Haji Aziz-ur-Rehman Chann, Naveed Chaudhry and Aslam Gill were also present at Nasser venue.
Kaira said that the protest camp of PPP will tell Nawaz Sharif the difference between a public gathering of Patwaris and Tehsildars and of real political workers. “I urge all the officers of the administration not to act like servants of any political party or a political family and to not create hindrances in the way of our workers coming to Nasser Bagh,” he added. Talking to Pakistan Today, Kaira said that PPP had held corner meetings and public gatherings in all of the constituencies of the city to mobilize the workers. “I received a positive response from the Jiyalas of Lahore and am hoping that workers from other districts will also join the camp,” he said.
It has been learnt that a delegation of the PPP met with Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations of Lahore Police Dr Haider Ashraf on Tuesday who convinced the leadership of the PPP to shift its venue for protest from Minar e Pakistan to Nasser Bagh because the city district government has banned all political gatherings there. A notification was issued by the city district government in November banning all political gatherings at Minar-i-Pakistan because of the fear of damaging the beauty of the recently built Greater Iqbal Park.
PPP had started its movement against rampant load-shedding last month and it has staged protest in Karachi, Peshawar and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) since then. Earlier, PPP’s Punjab leadership was given a task to hold its protest on April 27 but Qamar Zaman Kaira had bought some time from the party leadership to mobilize the workers in order to make the protest more effective.
