FAISALABAD/SHEIKHUPURA/ LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party will continue its campaign against the government till its four demands are met, there is prosperity for the masses and all remaining vestiges of dictator Ziaul Haq’s era are eliminated.

PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari announced this in Faisalabad where Thursday’s rally, a part of the PPP’s Awami Rabita Mohim, came to a close.

Party jiyalas had set up camps at Nankana Sahib, Feroze Wattwan and Manawala to welcome Mr Bhutto-Zardari in the rally that marked his first public appearance in Punjab. Instead of stopping at the Thokar Niaz Beg and Saggian Bridge camps, a large number of PPP workers and supporters thronged the Bahria Town streets leading up to Bilawal House early on Thursday morning where they shouted slogans and danced to PPP songs, while dhol walas played their drums to welcome the party chairperson.

Towards the start of the rally, PPP’s Central Punjab general secretary Nadeem Afzal Chan tied an ‘Imam zamin’ on Mr Zardari’s right arm before he got into the jeep driven by Qamar Zaman Kaira.

PPP workers showered rose petals on his vehicle as the procession left for the Thokar motorway toll plaza through the Canal Bank Road. Passing through Babu Sabu Interchange, the rally took the motorway route to reach Sheikhupura.

A large crowd welcomed the PPP leader there. Addressing the gathering in Sheikhupura, Mr Bhutto-Zardari lamented the government policies that had deteriorated conditions for farmers, labourers, traders and the masses in general. “The price hike has left Pakistan in a miserable condition,” he said, adding that if the PPP came to power it would do its best to provide relief to the masses.

Chiding the government for abandoning the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project initiated by his father, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said if the project had not fallen through, it would have surely brought prosperity to all sectors of the economy.

During the rally, the young PPP leader passionately addressed party workers from the sunroof of his vehicle, to which his sister Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari tweeted her concern:

“Why are you allowing my brother on the sunroof,” she said in a message addressed to the party’s Punjab leaders.

The concern was telling since their mother, former PM Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated near Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh when she stood through the sunroof of her vehicle to address party workers in December 2007.

The procession then headed towards Faisalabad through Nankana Sahib and stopped at the District Council Chowk in the evening. They rally was joined by a few hundred people there as it had gotten dark and the weather had turned slightly chilly.

Mian Manzoor Wattoo, PPP district president Asif Khan, Usman Nisar Pannu, Azhar Virk, Shahbaz Bhatti, Mumtaz Moon, Mian Mushtaq Dogar, Mirza Haroon Rasheed, Haji Yaseen, Mian Shabbir were among the prominent party leaders at the rally.

The PPP has launched a movement to ensure justice for the masses, the party chairperson said. He urged workers to unite to oust the Sharif family, “whose business interests are thriving while state institutions languish from neglect”.

The Sharif family were amassing wealth while in exile while PPP leaders sacrificed their lives to save Pakistan, he said. “The Panama Papers have exposed this...the mills owned by the Sharifs continue to pile profits while the country’s youth are jobless and farmers commit suicide.”

“Our movement seeks justice for farmers, the youth, the industrial workers and the common man,” he said, adding that they were also looking to eliminate the remnants of dictator Ziaul Haq’s oppressive regime.

The government’s flawed policies have hit the agricultural sector badly, he said, while unemployment and prices of essential commodities have increased manifold. “The government is a killer of the dreams of the masses,” he added.

Criticising the Punjab government’s ‘welfare’ projects including food stamps, solar power, sasti roti and Danish schools, the PPP leader called them unsustainable failed policies that had exposed the Punjab CM as “Showbaz” Sharif.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2017