LAHORE: Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has been nominated as president of the central Punjab chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The offices of the party’s president and secretary general had been lying vacant since resignations of Qamar Zaman Kaira and Chaudhry Manzoor, respectively, since the first week of May 2021. The two leaders had been asked to resign for failing to timely withdraw the party’s candidate in Khushab by-polls in favour of the nominee of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

The PPP’s provincial body has planned to give Raja Ashraf, who belongs to Gujjar Khan, a warm welcome on his first visit to the Punjab capital after his nomination as president.

A decision to the effect was taken by the Punjab executive body meeting of the party held with senior vice-president Chaudhry Aslam Gill in the chair here on Monday. Meanwhile, Mr Ashraf chided the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government for what he calls rendering jobless thousands of government employees in contrast to its claims of creating 10 million new jobs.

He said the PTI was following the agenda of enhancing price-hike and poverty as it was doing nothing except telling lies and blaming the opposition for its own follies.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2021