ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, who surprisingly resigned as official spokesperson for party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari last week, is expected to have a meeting with the latter on Tuesday (today), Dawn has learnt.

Sources said Mr Bhutto-Zardari had personally approached Mr Khokhar and invited him for the meeting in an effort to sort out “differences” between the two on some unknown matters.

Sources close to Mr Khokhar confirmed to Dawn that since the senator’s resignation, the PPP chairman had talked to Mr Khokhar over the phone an a couple of occasions seeking a meeting with him. They said Mr Khokhar had accepted Mr Bhutto-Zardari’s invitation and the two would be meeting in Lahore on Tuesday.

PPP chief’s ex-spokesperson has been invited to Lahore for discussion

“I have resigned from the position of spokesperson to the chairman, not from PPP. [I] will stand by BBZ (Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari) through thick and thin. In my years as his spokesperson, [I] have given [him] counsel with honesty, sincerity and in the best interest of the country and the party,” Mr Khokhar had written on his official account on Twitter last week while confirming the media reports a day earlier about his decision.

He, however, did not assign any reason to his decision, thus lending weight to reports that he had been “unhappy” and “uncomfortable” with the party leadership for quite some days.

When contacted by Dawn, Mr Khokhar declined to disclose the actual reason behind his sudden decision and simply stated that after his decision to quit the key party position, he would now be able to speak in the party on the matters more freely.

“All I can say at this point is that I would be able to comment and express my thoughts more freely, without any compulsions and responsibility that comes with the position of spokesperson for a party head,” Mr Khokhar had stated.

Mr Khokhar, who is among some of the frontline PPP leaders who defend their party forcefully and emphatically in the media, also did not attend the PDM’s public meeting in Lahore on Sunday and preferred to stay in the federal capital, which is also his home city.

A number of PPP leaders, when contacted, said that Mr Khokhar had distanced himself from the party’s activities in recent days for unknown reasons. They denied that Mr Khokhar had resigned because of differences on some policy matters and believed that “something had happened between the chairman and him”.

“Perhaps he [Mr Khokhar] has felt offended with some remarks or behaviour of Mr Bhutto-Zardari and made it an ego issue,” said a PPP office-bearer, who claims to be privy to some of the developments in this regard.

And the text of the resignation which Mr Khokhar has submitted to the party chairman also strengthens this viewpoint.

“Have tried my level best to keep up to your expectations and strongly feel that the time has come for us to gracefully give each other space,” says Mr Khokhar in his brief resignation seen by this scribe.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2020