KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Tuesday announced that it would hold a “massive power show” on Oct 17 to mark the 14th anniversary of 2007 Karsaz bombing on Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming convoy in the city where “hundreds of thousands of jialas from all over Sindh” would gather to express solidarity with the party and denounce the ‘selected’ government of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

The announcement came from the PPP leadership at a meeting attended by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at CM House where a consensual decision was made that the party would keep its struggle continuing for a ‘true’ democratic government and for that marking Oct 18 anniversary through a rally would strengthen this ideology.

“The rally would be held on October 17 in Bagh-i-Jinnah near the mausoleum of the Quaid-i-Azam,” PPP-Sindh president Nisar Khuhro said in a statement issued after the meeting.

“It will be a massive power show to be addressed by PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. Party workers have already started making arrangements and people from all over Sindh will be there. It would be another reflection of the PPP’s strong roots in Karachi and other parts of Sindh,” he said.

While Prime Minister Imran Khan is holding out an olive branch to the PPP-led Sindh government to improve working relations between the Centre and the province, the PPP leaders’ tone suggest that any thaw in the strained relations between the two is unlikely to occur anytime soon.

Apart from announcing the rally, the PPP’s provincial president also announced that the party would take up recently announced measures of the federal government at different forums.

The meeting was attended Waqar Mehdi, Saeed Ghani, Senator Sassui Palejo, Javed Nayab Laghari, Sarfaraz Rajar and district and divisional leaders from across Sindh.

He said the PPP would not accept any move which would lead to “extrajudicial extension” of the chairman of the National Accounta­bility Bureau chairman (NAB).

“The PPP is clear that the PTI government has failed to create an environment that allows consultation with the leader of the opposition on the extension of NAB chairman’s services.”

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2021