RAWALPINDI: Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, who never visited Rawalpindi and contacted PPP workers in his nine-month tenure, on Saturday came to the city to convince party workers to attend the October 18 public meeting in Karachi.

Mr Ashraf visited the house of PPP City President Amir Fida Paracha to meet some senior local leaders. However, the old workers gave him a tough time for ignoring party workers during PPP’s five-year tenure from 2008 to 2013.

Besides Mr Paracha, Sultan Mehmood Qazi, Rashid Mir, Chaudhry Iftikhar, Anjum Farooq Paracha and other party workers were present.

Taj Niazi, a party worker from Dhoke Ratta, said the PPP failed to deliver during its five-year term. Now it has sent a party leader to gather people for the public meetings.

He said there was a dire need for the party to decide whether it considered workers really important or just needed them for public meetings.

Shafique Khan, who was injured in the December 27, 2007, bomb-and-gun attack on PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto at Liaquat Bagh, said the party had failed to deliver despite the historical sacrifice its leaders offered for democracy.

Local PPP leaders complain the party ignored garrison city during its five-year rule

“The party leaders failed to do any development work in the city during their last tenure. You can visit the roads, streets, hospitals, educational institutes and will not find even a single building or street or welfare scheme launched by the PPP-led government,” he said.

Mr Ashraf tried to convince the workers that the party was dragged to courts in countless cases.

But he admitted that it was the failure of the party to ignore its workers.

He said the party would welcome its workers in Karachi and bear all their travel expense. The workers should welcome Benazir Bhutto’s son into formal politics so that the vacuum created by her assassination could be filled, he added.

Meanwhile, talking to newsmen after the meeting, Mr Ashraf said his party would hold a mammoth public gathering in Karachi on October 18.

He said PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto was going to Jinnah Park in Karachi on October 18, 2007, to address a public gathering when a suicide bomber hit her rally.

“Now party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will make his mother’s dream come true by addressing a public gathering at the venue on October 18,” he said.

He said rallies from Rawalpindi, Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir and all the four provinces would reach Karachi. He said his party would also welcome PTI public gathering in Larkana on October 21.

He said the workers were family members of the PPP and all their grievances would be removed.

“We have to move together to continue the missions of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto who sacrificed their lives for the voiceless people,” he said.

He said former president Asif Ali Zardari promoted the politics of tolerance and if the PTI and PML-N held rallies in Sindh, they would be welcomed by the PPP.

He said the PPP was not against sit-ins being staged by the PTI and PAT in Islamabad but national economy should not be damaged at any cost.

He said the PPP did not accept the results of the 2013 elections, adding free and fair elections were necessary for democracy.

Published in Dawn, October 5th , 2014