PESHAWAR: After a long time, Pakistan People’s Party showed its presence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as thousands of workers accompanied Eng Mohammad Humayun Khan, the newly appointed provincial president of the party, in a big vehicular procession from Peshawar to his hometown Malakand Agency.

The procession was organised in honour of the new provincial president of PPP. It was perhaps the first show of PPP workers during the past five years because last time Senator Sardar Ali Khan was brought to his residence from Islamabad in a procession of workers but then the tradition was not observed when he was replaced by Khanzada Khan.

Seeing the enthusiasm of workers, Mr Humayun Khan also vowed that he would visit house of every disgruntled activist to redress grievances of people and reorganise the party in the province.

Workers accompany new provincial president of party in big vehicular procession

Presently, PPP workers have attached high expectations to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. They believe that he is sincere enough to reorganise the party on solid footings at the country level and purge it from self-interest elements once for all.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PPP had seen its climax when Hayat Mohammad Khan Sherpao was its provincial president. Later, his brother Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, (presently chairman of Qaumi Watan Party) was also fortunate enough as he ran its affairs successfully and served the province twice as chief minister.

Serious differences had started surfacing in PPP when Mr Sherpao was replaced and since then the party could not succeed to get majority of seats in the province in the general elections.

The experience to form coalition with ANP was also not good for PPP as common workers always complained against their ministers for not attending their phone calls and avoided meeting with them. As result, the gulf between leadership and workers widened and many of PPP activists said goodbye to party or sat silent without taking active part in the party’s affairs.

The situation still exists and workers expect that the top leadership would take serious steps to rejuvenate PPP in the province.

During background interviews, several leaders of PPP said that only Humayun Khan was acceptable to workers as provincial president of the party while other office-bearers in the province would not like to comply with orders of the top leadership to reorganise the party. It will be another setback for PPP if the new office-bearers don’t take active part in reorganisation of the party.

Mr Humayun seems to have started work on taking the disgruntled people into confidence as many of them accompanied him during his first visit to Malakand. Insiders said that the second phase of reorganisation of the party to appoint divisional and district office-bearers was very important for future of the party, especially in the context of the next general elections.

“If reasonable people are not appointed at divisional and district level then PPP will be unable to have a good team for running its affairs at different levels. The party also needs a team of senior workers to take part in negotiations during next elections,” said a leader of the party. He added that a person in the sitting cabinet of PPP had openly refused accepting new assignment but even then he was given key post in the province.

PPP former provincial information secretary Syed Ayub Shah, who was part of the procession, when contacted, said that the new provincial president of PPP was capable to run the party owing to his sincerity to meet people, give weight to opinion of workers and visit houses of disgruntled activists.

However, he also stressed the need for teamwork to enable the party to win future elections. He said that those, who were unwilling to work in the province, should be given other responsibilities in the party.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2016