Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has finally announced its office bearers for the Lahore city. The party’s old stalwart Haji Aziz ur Rehman Chann has been made the President while Israr ul Haq Butt has been appointed as the new General Secretary of the party in Lahore, according to a notification issued by Bilawal House Karachi on Friday. Other hopefuls for these posts were Samina Khalid Ghurki, who was the President of PPP Lahore before Rehman Chann, Aslam Gill, Azizur Rehman, Faisal Mir and Zulfiqar Ali Badar.
It took more than a year for the PPP to announce the party’s office bearers in Lahore. All of the party’s provincial and regional organisations were dissolved in April 2016 on the directives of the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
When Bilawal held the reigns of the party, he decided to reorganise it and announced the new leadership for Central Punjab; Qamar Zaman Kaira was made President and Nadeem Afzal Chan became General Secretary of the party, for the region in November, 2016.
In April 2017 Bilawal had announced the party’s office bearers for the Lahore division. Rai Shahjahan was made the President and Haji Falksher, the General Secretary.
The PPP has started a campaign of revitalising the party in Punjab. A sit-in staged in Nasir Bagh against rampant load shedding in the country was also a part of this campaign.
It is imperative to state that Lahore holds great significance in regards to general elections as a total of 13 National Assembly and 25 Provincial Assembly members are elected from the city.
Currently, the situation for the PPP in Lahore is dreadful as it has managed to win only 1 UC seat that is in UC 174. Israr-ul-Haq, brother of the slain party worker Babar Butt, holds this seat.
Israr-ul-Haq while talking to Pakistan Today said that Lahore is the home of PPP, as the party was formed in the city. He added that he being the GS Lahore of the party, he holds great responsibility to revive it in the city, at least. He added that he will leave no stone unturned to ensure a successful campaign for the party by leading a door to door campaign in the upcoming general elections, in 2018.