ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will tour all the four provincial capitals to mobilise masses ahead of the party’s Dec 27 public meeting at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi, the place of the assassination of his mother and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which took place on the same day in 2007.

In this connection, the party is organising workers’ conventions in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.

According to an announcement by the PPP Media Office, Mr Bhutto-Zardari will address the workers’ convention in Karachi on Dec 13, in Quetta on Dec 15, Lahore on 18 and Peshawar on 21.

Talking to media after meeting his ailing father Asif Ali Zardari at an Islamabad hospital last week, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had announced that the PPP had decided to hold a major event on the 12th death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi’s historic Liaquat Bagh, where she was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack.

Previously, the PPP had a tradition of holding gatherings on the occasions of birth and death anniversaries of the party leaders at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto in Larkana, Sindh.

“A clear message will once again come from Liaquat Bagh for entire Pakistan and the world that as per the PPP’s belief, power belongs to people,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari had stated.

The party has so far not announced any plan to hold a meeting of its central executive committee (CEC), which also traditionally meets on such occasions.

When contacted, PPP secretary general Farhatullah Babar said traditionally the CEC met before a public meeting on the birth and death anniversaries of the party leaders. Though so far the party has not announced any date for the CEC meeting, it can be convened any day before the Liaquat Bagh public meeting.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2019