SUKKUR: Acrimonious scenes were witnessed at the Pakistan Peoples Party’s workers’ convention held at the Jacobabad circuit house on Saturday evening when supporters of four candidates for the slot of the party’s district chief came to blows in the presence of many of their provincial leaders.

Adviser on Information Maula Bux Chandio and senior minister Nisar Khuhro had to struggle hard to avert a major showdown after scuffles among the rival groups that left three persons injured. The victims were taken to the Jacobabad Civil Hospital for treatment. The glass of the main gate of the circuit house was smashed during the chaos.

According to Mr Chandio and Mr Khuhro, the convention was convened by the party’s provincial coordination committee under the instructions of Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari as part of its ongoing reorganisation process. They said that the party chief wanted them [the provincial leaders] to ascertain the choice of workers in Jacobabad in the selection of district president and general secretary.

MNAs Nafeesa Shah and Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, MPAs Mir Aurangzeb Khan Panhwar, Dr Sohrab Sarki, Mumtaz Jakhrani and Saira Shalyani, her father and former MPA Ghulam Mohammed Shalyani, Rashid Rabbani, District council chairman Sardar Mohammed Panah Odho and vice chairman Mohammed Ismail Khoso, a municipal committee chairman Ghulam Abbas Jakhrani and several other party leaders attended the convention.

The event was hit by discontent among workers from the very beginning as the four candidates for the slot of district president — Mir Liaquat Ali Lashari, Abdul Sattar Brohi, Aziz Abro and Ahmed Nawaz Pechuho — leading their respective supporters entered the convention venue raising slogans against one another and giving a clear impression that were not ready to give up the slot.

They kept making noise for quite some time before Mr Khuhro appeared on the stage and used strong words ordering them to stop raising slogans and patiently wait for the outcome of a consultation and assessment to be done by the coordination committee in the next couple of hours. Members of the coordination committee and several other senior party activists also joined Mr Khuhro in his effort to restore order.

The audience kept listening to the speeches in an orderly manner but as soon as the party’s former district, taluka and city office-bearers and the candidates for district president and general secretary were called to a consultation on the sidelines of the convention, supporters of the rival groups resumed slogan-mongering, which ended up in scuffles. Two workers and a policeman sustained injuries and the glass of the circuit house gate got smashed during the brawl.

Meanwhile, MNA Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, MPA Dr Sohrab Sarki and other senior leaders, after the consultation and assessment process, recommended Mir Liaquat Ali Lashari and Mohsin Sarki (son of Dr Sohrab Sarki) for the slots of the district president and general secretary, respectively. The party would make a formal announcement soon, it was stated.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016