PESHAWAR, Oct 6: Naheed Khan, a disgruntled leader of Pakistan People’s Party and former political secretary to Benazir Bhutto, has said that the party of Bhuttos is in the clutches of landlords who pushed the ideological workers to wall and served their own interests during the party’s five years in government.

Despite the fact that Asif Ali Zardari remained President and his colleagues worked as ministers, they all failed to arrest the killers of Ms Bhutto and rather supported all those who worked against the Bhutto family and the party in past.

Speaking at a press conference in Peshawar Press Club on Sunday, she said that the party founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had raised voice against the landlords and capitalists, but now the PPP was in the grip of people who distributed sweets on the death of its chairman.

She said that during five-year in government the rulers sold the PPP at the hands of Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Sindh, Pakistan Muslim League-Q in Punjab and Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ignored the ideological workers of PPP.

Flanked by PPP leaders, including Safdar Abbasi, Nawab Khattak and others, Ms Naheed said that Mr Zardari was leader of Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians which did not have any relation with Bhutto family, adding that the real heirs of the PPP were its workers. Mr Abbasi and Mr Khattak also spoke on the occasion.

She said that all the workers were annoyed with the former president and his associates and now wanted to organise the real party across the country.

“Our visits to different areas and public meetings are aimed at reactivating the annoyed workers so as to reorganise the Bhuttos party,” she claimed and added that she did not want to form her own party.

About the grave situation of lawlessness, price hike, energy crisis etc, she said that the government should focus on real issues to overcome the problems.

Ms Naheed asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to arrest the killers of Ms Bhutto and award them exemplary punishment. She said that the previous PPP-led government had ignored the basic philosophy of Mr Bhutto, but the workers still wanted to work in this direction to ensure rights to people.

Earlier, a delegation led by Ms Naheed visited Lady Reading Hospital and enquired after the people injured in recent bomb blasts.