5, April 2005	Tuesday	25 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 4: The leaders and the activists of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have started massive preparations to give Asif Ali Zardari, the spouse of party chairperson Benazir Bhutto, a rousing welcome on his arrival in Lahore from Dubai on April 16, sources told Dawn on Monday.The sources said the party leaders had been directed by Benazir Bhutto to give Mr Zardari a “historic reception”, which would be considered a grand rehearsal for her own return to the country in near future.

According to the sources, the PPP has decided to arrange a huge public meeting in Lahore to show its political strength for the first time since military take-over in October 1999. The event has been named “National Show” by the party.

Though the party participated in some of the public meetings from the platform of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), it never made such efforts in the past to make the public meetings successful, they added.

Dr Qayyum Soomro, a close friend of Mr Zardari, who is nowadays in Lahore to look after the arrangements, told Dawn that the party had set a target of a rally of more than 1.5 million people on April 16. He said all the arrangements had already been finalized and they were very hopeful of achieving the target.

Dr Soomro said the party was hopeful that the government would not create any hurdles in the peaceful procession. “We are peaceful people and expect from the government that it will cooperate with us,” he said.

The sources said the party had decided to set up camps in all major cities and towns from Tuesday (today), where people would be asked to proceed to Lahore to receive Mr Zardari. Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto, they said, would also deliver telephonic speeches to the people in the camps, which would be set up for 10 days.

They said orders had already been placed for printing of a large number of banners, posters and stickers inscribed with various slogans. A senior PPP leader claimed that the party had arranged some 25,000 vehicles, including buses and trucks, which would be used to take people from Lahore Airport to Data Darbar, where Mr Zardari would hold a public meeting. Besides, he said, all the seats in four main trains had been booked to bring people to Lahore from Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah, Bahawalpur, Multan, Gujranwala and other cities.

Giving details of the route of the rally, he said it would start from Lahore Airport after 12 noon and culminate at Data Darbar after passing through several main areas, including Club Chowk, Davis Road, Simla Pahari, Lakshmi Chowk and Shah Alam Chowk. He said over 4,000 litres milk had been arranged for washing the shrine of Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh.

When contacted, PPP leader Munir Ahmed Khan said most of the people would start coming to Lahore some three to four days before April 16 to avoid any inconvenience. He said various committees had been working day and night to finalize the arrangements.

“On April 16, we will prove that the PPP is the largest and only political party of the country which have roots and representation in all the four provinces,” Mr Khan said.

The sources said Mr Zardari was originally scheduled to return to the country in the last week of March. However, keeping in view the fact that it would become hectic for the party leaders to prepare for Mr Zardari’s reception as well for the death anniversary of party’s founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto falling on April 4, his visit was delayed. Due to this reason, the PPP also requested all component parties of the ARD to cancel the March 23 public meeting in Lahore.