PESHAWAR: For the disappointed activists of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) the workers convention, scheduled to be held on eve of the party’s foundation day on Nov 30 in Lahore, is the last hope to redress their grievances.

A number of senior PPP activists told this correspondent here on Saturday that the party’s young chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was much eager to revive the party and redress the workers’ grievances by replacing the incompetent and corrupt office-bearers and strengthen it across the country.

“This convention will have far-reaching effects on the future of the party. It will either get strength or face another serious setback,” the activists opined and said that the party’s future depended on the new policy. The Lahore convention seems to be the last hope for the annoyed workers to resolve the issues.

Party activists said that they would participate in the convention with the hope that all the office-bearers who had accumulated wealth by unfair means would be replaced and young people brought forward.

The PPP office-bearers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced to hold workers’ convention on Jan 5,2015 but it is yet to initiate work for ending groupings in the party. In case the leaders failed to overcome the existing differences they will be unable to bring all the workers on a single platform in the province.

Provincial secretary information Liaquat Shabab is not ready to accept that the party is divided into groups in the province, saying that the central leadership in a recent meeting at Lahore had resolved all the issues. “There is no grouping in the party now,” he claimed.

When contacted, party’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa coordinator Barrister Masood Kausar said that some important decisions had already been taken in the previous sessions with the central chairman and one of them was about holding conventions at the district, divisional and provincial levels.

“The prolonged lull in the party’s activities has caused unrest among the workers and they need to be reactivated in accordance with the changes witnessed by the people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the past one decade to face the new challenges in a befitting manner,” he opined.

About the workers’ demand for intra-party elections, Mr Kausar said that it was a demand for an ideal situation, but there could be some other solutions also on the basis of broad-based consensus. “Our basic purpose is to restore democratic culture in the party, ensure access of every worker to the responsible people, including ministers and office-bearers, to overcome the issues,” he said.

The former governor said that the movement for intra-party elections did not mean to target any individual, but to maintain the democratic culture within the framework of PPP’s manifesto.

He said that it was the need of the hour that young people should lead the party with a new zeal to enable it win all the future elections with majority.

“We will invite Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to the workers’ convention to be held in Peshawar soon because he also wants to have a close contact with the party workers. He wants to come, but we will take the decision as per the security situation,” he said.

The PPP coordinator also said that frequent activities could remove the grievances of workers and restore confidence of its supporters and activists. “We cannot reactivate the annoyed workers unless they are given chance to express views and accept responsibility,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2014