For the second year, diehard PPP workers, particularly from Punjab, will not be able to interact with their young leader Bilawal Bhutto Zaradri on the auspicious occasion of the party’s founding day as the leadership has decided to cancel the party’s traditional gathering in Lahore. Earlier, the PPP leadership had announced that Mr Bilawal would attend a convention to be held in Lahore on Nov 30 to mark the party’s 49th founding day and announce a new PPP strategy and guideline for party workers. But, according to PPP Vice-President Senator Sherry Rehman, the party has in principle decided not to hold the main event on its founding day because of local government elections in Punjab and Sindh. That the PPP is fast losing ground in Punjab is no longer breaking news. The decline can be traced back, in fact, to before the ’13 general election rout. And it has been visibly downhill ever since. Yet the leadership remains indifferent, which is alarming. Some in Punjab hoped that the thrashing at the local body polls would finally prompt Bilawal to follow through on his long-announced visit and reorganisation. But the leadership has decided to cancel the party’s traditional founding day function in Lahore for the first time. According to press reports, even party workers find this strategy difficult to understand. Sherry Rehman could not convince mid- and lower-level workers that the function – which has been held every year since ZAB founded the party – would distract them from local body elections. The workers, instead, contend that the defeat in the first phase necessacitated direct intervention from the top leadership to breathe fresh life into the party. Now, it seems, PPP’s many problems in Punjab – infighting, defections, management breakdown, etc – will remain unaddressed at least for the foreseeable future.
pk.shafaqna.com
