LAHORE: After spending a week in Lahore, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zaradri left for Islamabad on Saturday, apparently without success in wooing ‘electables’ from Punjab.

According to the party, Mr Zardari will join the ongoing National Assembly session on Monday.

In his eight-day stay at the Bilawal House here, not a single known political leader announced joining the PPP, in contradiction to the party’s claim that a good number of electables had consented to join it during Mr Zardari’s stay in Punjab’s capital.

Instead, the party had to face embarrassment when two politicians – former Punjab chief minister Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo and the PTI’s Ijaz Dyal – who called on the former president, later rebuffed the PPP’s claim they had joined the party.

Interestingly, Mr Zardari neither had any interaction with the PPP workers at the Bilawal House, nor issued any political statement challenging the party’s opponents during his stay in Lahore.

“In this Lahore tour, Mr Zardari basically explored a proposal floated by powers that be that the PPP has to enhance its electoral share both in south and central Punjab if it sees its chances to form government in the Centre in the 2023 general election. And its main opponent in Punjab is the PML-N, obviously,” a party insider told Dawn on Saturday. Mr Zardari remained busy in working out the proposal, he added.

He said during the co-chairman’s stay here the option of pitching Aseefa Bhutto in Punjab for

the purpose was also deliberated upon. “Wooing electables in Punjab was the main focus of Mr Zardari and he was briefed on this,” he said.

Another PPP leader said: “Upon his arrival [in Lahore] Mr Zardari was told by the local leadership close to him that the disgruntled PTI leaders Nadim Afzal Chan and former federal minister Nazar Gondal from Mandi Bahauddin and former PML-N stalwart Zulfiqar Khosa from D G Khan would join the PPP after calling on him. However, this did not happen.” The Chan and Gondal families were with the PPP before they parted ways ahead of 2018 polls.

He said the PPP was even keen to woo some runner-up candidates for national and provincial assemblies, especially of the PML-N (in Punjab). However, sensing the situation, the PML-N Punjab leadership got active and started establishing contacts with such candidates (to retain them in the party), he added.

“On the south Punjab front, Zardari has tasked the party’s south Punjab president and former governor, Makhdoom Ahmad Mahmood, to persuade the PTI’s disgruntled leader, Jahangir Khan Tareen, to join the PPP along with the party’s rebel lawmakers from the region. Similarly, opposition leader in the Senate, Yousuf Raza Gilani, is also mandated by the party leadership to go after electables in the south to consolidate the party,” he said.

As two PPP biwigs -- Qamar Zaman Kaira and Chaudhry Manzoor -- have recently resigned from their offices as party’s central Punjab president and secretary general, respectively, Mr Zardari did not take them onboard during his visit which raised many eyebrows in the provincial chapter of the party. The PPP leadership has yet to find their replacement.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2021