A second protest in five months
As once witnesses the PPP’s performance on the ground the party leadership’s claim of forming the next government in Punjab sounds farcical. The PPP high command thoroughly neglected Punjab for four years. The promised reorganisation of the Punjab chapter was delayed till early this year. The PPP leadership indulged more in piped reams like conducting a long march from Larkana to Islamabad than solid planning and real groundwork to restore the morale of the workers. The Multan rally scheduled for March was cancelled for security concerns. There being no likelihood of the security threats diminishing any time soon, one had expected the party would draw up an alternative plan which it does not seem to have accomplished.
During the last five months the party could arrange only two public gatherings in the province, the Lahore-Faisalabad rally and a protest against continuous load shedding at Nasser Bagh on Thursday. The speeches by top party leaders however indicated a marked difference in approach. While Sen. Aitzaz Ahsan and Punjab President Kaira emphasised corruption at the highest government level, and exposed the PML-N administration’s claims of good governance, Khursheed Shah indulged mostly in anti-India rhetoric forgetting that Benazir Bhutto had worked hard for Pakistan-India détente. Earlier Khursheed Shah had denounced Hussain Haqqani as “traitor,” a term that one thought had gone out of use among liberal politicians. There is a perception that India bashing is being undertaken to win the sympathies of offstage players and under a misconception that this would make the party popular in Punjab.
The Nasser Bagh protest was less than impressive. If the idea was to create a stir, the protest failed to do that. Much more needs to be done by the PPP leadership to establish its broken links with the masses due to the party’s abysmal performance during its last tenure.
.
It was intriguing to find a ‘roznamcha’ having been registered by Lahore police against the Prime Minister for allegedly provoking people and creating hatred against the armed forces. In case the report is correct it will lend support to the prevailing conspiracy theories.