KARACHI, Oct 18: PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani has claimed that the Pakistan People’s Party would register a massive victory in the upcoming general elections in which the ruling PML-Q would wipe out and many of its leaders would lose their deposits.

He was speaking at an Iftar gathering, held for party workers in District East, which was part of the unprecedented mobilisation drive launched by the party in the metropolis.

Mr Rabbani, who is Leader of the Opposition in Senate and Deputy Secretary General of the PPP, said that his party always believed in and came to power with the public support and, as such, striking any secret deal with the anti-people regime was simply against its basic principles.

He emphatically rejected reports as ‘disinformation’ that the PPP leadership was in the process of finalising a deal for sharing powers with the military dictators.

He asked party workers to counter this propaganda by the regime which, he said, was aimed at sabotaging the opposition’s united struggle against its dispensation.

He was of the view that due to the wrong and anti-people policies of the military-led regime, the federation was in danger and the country was facing one crisis after the other.

He claimed that only the PPP chairperson, Ms Benazir Bhutto, could take the country out of the difficult situation, and vowed to bring her back as the country’s prime minister for a third stint. He declared that 2007 would be the year of PPP’s electoral success.

Speaking on the occasion, senior PPP leader and the party’s Sindh chief Syed Qaim Ali Shah accused the regime of fleecing people and rendering hundreds of thousands of the workers unemployed.

In this context, he cited the laying off of 2008 PTCL workers. He observed that owing to government’s wrong policies, more than 50 per cent of the country’s population was living below the poverty line.

He castigated the government’s policy of not letting the benefit of downward slide in oil prices trickle down to people, and called the government ‘a band of trouble-makers’.

He said the PPP was the only party which could change this situation as it enjoyed support of a big majority of people across the country. He slammed the regime’s propaganda of a secret deal, and said it was part of the government’s plan to divide the opposition. He declared that the PPP would continue its struggle for democracy and the rule of law from the platform of the ARD.

Prof N.D. Khan said the people were being crushed by the regime for demanding their economic, political and individual rights.

He said the policy of selling out the country’s profitable assets to foreigners for the benefit of the rich had brought the country to the brink of a disaster, adding that there was a need for mass mobilisation to check this practice.

He held the regime responsible for appalling law and order situation, rise in terrorism and street crimes, etc.

The gathering was also addressed by the Nafees Siddiqui, Rashid Rabbani and Rafiq Engineer, Waqar Mehdi, Saeed Ghani, Mirza Maqbool Ahmed and Shahid Kamal Abbasi.