RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) remains a divided house in the garrison city.

This emerged on the death anniversary of slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto on Saturday when the party activists visited her memorial near Liaquat Bagh in small groups.

The division within the party ranks was also visible as the local leaders observed the death anniversary separately. The functions started from candlelight vigil on Friday night and ended with the main function organised by the local chapter of the PPP.

However, the ‘public meeting’ was not more than a corner meeting which attracted only about 400 activists from all the seven tehsils of the Rawalpindi district.

The party’s local chapter had announced that PPP Punjab president Manzoor Wattoo would attend the event, but he did not turn up. Former managing director Pakistan Baitul Maal (PBM) Zamrud Khan, Raja Imran Ashraf, Qazi Sultan Mehmood, Amir Fida Paracha and others attended the function.

The People’s Youth Wing refused to participate in the function and arranged a separate gathering on Friday night to observe a candlelight vigil.

Another group, led by Nasir Mir and the Chaudhry Banaras group also skipped the function and visited the monument early in the morning.

Benazir Bhutto’s close ally Naheed Khan and former Senator Safdar Abbasi’s group also observed the death anniversary separately. More than 150 people participated in the event they organised at 1pm.

Talking to Dawn, Ibne Rizvi of the Naheed Khan group, said since the assassination of Ms Bhutto in 2007, the party workers had been demanding that the killers and conspirators behind the assassination should be arrested.

“Unfortunately, the previous PPP-led federal government failed to arrest the killers when it was in power for five years. We come to the monument of Ms Bhutto because she was our leader.”

He said the previous PPP government also made PML-Q leader Pervaiz Ellahi as the deputy prime minister and ran the affairs of the party by those who had distributed sweets on the execution of PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Chaudhry Banaras, the PPP secretary general for PP-13, said the local chapter failed to show the party’s strength in the city due to negligence. “Most of the people visited the monument separately as they did not want to participate in the meeting where Manzoor Watto was invited,” he said.

Nazmeen Group leader Nasir Mir said he and other nazims did not attend the function because the current leadership ignored the party workers. He said all the workers and local leaders visited the monument but most of them avoided attending the function arranged by the local chapter. He said there was a dire need for a reshuffle in the party to bring genuine workers to the front.

Meanwhile, speaking at the main function, PPP City president Amir Fida Paracha said the party was committed to fulfilling the dream of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto to bring a socio-economic change in the country.

“Elections were rigged in 2013 and four turncoats joined tsunami on the tune of invisible forces,” he said.

Zamrud Khan said the party wanted to root out extremism from the country and raise a voice for the voiceless people.

“Ms Bhutto sacrificed her life for the country and democracy. The PPP will take revenge from terrorists for killing innocent children in Peshawar,” he said.

Raja Imran Ashraf said the party was united under the leadership of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Asif Ali Zardari.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2014