20 January 2004	Tuesday	27 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 19: People's Party leaders Aslam Gurdaspuri and Rana Shaukat Mahmood on Monday announced the establishment of Bhutto World Foundation, a forum they said would acquaint the younger generation with the political philosophy of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

At a news conference here, they said the BWF would have a wide-ranging charter which would be unveiled gradually. Ms Benazir Bhutto is the patron-in-chief of the BWF while PPP secretary-general Jehangir Badr is its patron. Mr Gurdaspuri is the president and Rana Shaukat the secretary-general.

Mr Shaukat and Mr Gurdaspuri said they would adhere to the PPP discipline and won't do anything against its interests. They also made it clear that they had not launched the BWF for any ulterior motive or to mount pressure on the leadership to give them any office.

The BWF would hold a seminar on Wednesday where former ministers Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, Rana Muhammad Haneef, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Begum Abida Husain and Malik Saeed Hasan would express their views about Mr Bhutto's philosophy and its relevance to the current century.

Mr Mahmood told a questioner that all PPP leaders had been invited to the seminar. However, he said he was not in a position to say at the moment who would turn up or stay away. Those invited to the seminar include Punjab PPP president Qasim Zia, Lahore president Mian Misbahur Rehman, Federal Council secretary-general Khalid Kharal and Munir Ahmad Khan.

"We don't have differences with any one," Mr Gurdaspuri cut in. "How the leaders who chose to quit Mr Bhutto's party or the political grasshoppers who have been leaving and rejoining the PPP at will are competent to highlight the late prime minister's philosophy or hold aloft his banner," a reporter asked, alluding to the list of speakers at the seminar.

Mr Mahmood said he had never removed the PPP flag from his residence nor had he ever deviated from the party programme. He said he had been to jail because of his commitment with the ideology. But, a reticent Rana Shaukat said, he was disappointed by certain developments.

He claimed that 80 per cent of the social charter adopted by the Saarc summit, held in the first week of the current month in Islamabad, had been taken from Mr Bhutto's ideas.