PESHAWAR: PPP not to strike deal with rulers: Rabbani
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Jan 5: The secretary-general of the Pakistan People’s Party, Raza Rabbani, has said that the PPP will neither change its political line nor strike a deal with the rulers for petty gains.
Speaking at the PPP provincial workers convention held at the Nishtar Hall on Sunday, Mr Rabbani said that his party did not even strike a deal with the rulers when its founding chairman Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was in the death cell in 1979. The PPP would never accept the agenda of the military rulers against democracy as it was against the spirit of the 1973 Constitution, he added.
A large number of party workers from all over the province attended the convention and give vent to their feelings but most of them were not allowed to register their protest against the PPP provincial leadership.
PPP leaders, Qamar Abbas, Najmuddin Khan, Rahimdad and others were present on the occasion. Except, Tariq Hameed Khattak and Mohammad Ali Bacha, none of the party MPAs were present at the workers convention.
Mr Rabbani said that the establishment had been against the progressive and radical stance of the PPP on national issues and manoeuvred on certain occasions to create some splinter groups in the party. The creation of a new group was nothing but a continuity of the old agenda of the establishment, he added.
The PPP secretary-general said Mr Bhutto was to the day alive for the people, because he gave a sense of self-realization to the commoners, factory workers, peasants and women. Despite, an organized suppressive drive, the PPP had survived the Ziaul Haq’s dictatorship and division in it made by the rulers, he added.
He said that only 17 turncoats, sitting behind Jamali, had changed their loyalties and betrayed their party and the voters. “We will not change our political path as it is the only way which leads to the people’s rule and a bright future of Pakistan,” he added.
The rulers, he said, had launched a smear media campaign against the PPP that it had no cohesion in its internal and external policies. The PPP would continue its people-friendly and pro-Pakistan policies, he added.
Masood Kausar, a former PPP provincial chief, said the rulers had not transferred power to the real elected representatives instead they shared it with the turncoats.
He said that the PPP had been struggling for the rights of the people and for the restoration of democracy in the country and once again it had become imperative for the party workers to prepare themselves for the task.
Mehrun Nisa Afridi, president of the NWFP chapter of the women wing, also paid tributes to Mr Bhutto and lashed out at the rulers making a mockery of the democracy in the country.
PPP provincial chief Khwaja Mohammad Khan Hoti also spoke at the convention, but it was too late for the workers to listen him as they started leaving their seats.
The activists of the People’s Students Federation also cut a cake along with Mr Rabbani and others to celebrate the 75th birth anniversary of Mr Bhutto.
Earlier, PPP officer-bearers from various districts stressed the need for freeing the party from smugglers, scoundrels, agents of secret agencies and re-organizing it on political lines set by its founding chairman.
Mishal Khan Azad, a PPP provincial council member from Lakki Marwat, said that the PPP was launched to get rid of the outdated socio-economic order based on exploitation of humans by humans and establish a classless society. But, owing to the betrayal of feudal class the PPP had failed to achieve its goal, he added.
Malik Waheed, PPP Mansehra general secretary, refused to speak till the arrival of Mr Rabbani. He said that he would address the convention in the presence of central leadership and point out the blunders of provincial leadership, but he was not allowed to take the podium.
