LAHORE: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari welcomed at least 180 new entrants to the party at Bilawal House here on Sunday. The new entrants are stated to be from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, PML-N, PML-Q, Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan.

Flanked by former prime minister Raja Parvez Ashraf, Hassan Murtaza, Shehzad Cheema, Aslam Gill, Ali Badar and Samina Pagganwala, the party chairman said that as the PPP had been founded in the Punjab capital, they would have to work hard to re-win the city.

Recalling the party’s achievements in the provision of employment and housing, he pledged to visit each tehsil of Punjab for direct interaction with the people. He believed that his mass-contact drive would be so successful that it would upset the rivals.

He vowed to hoist the party flag at the houses of all those who were currently with the PPP or had been with it in the past. “Whosoever has raised the slogan of ‘jiay Bhutto’ will be taken along.”

Bilawal asserted that the slogan of roti, kapra aur makan (bread, dress and housing) is still relevant in present-day politics as it had been in the 1970s.

He claimed that only the PPP could offer jobs to the people of Punjab.

In an apparent reference to the Sharifs, he sought to negate the impression that they had any personal enmity with any political figure in the province and stressed that the PPP was the only fighting for the basic rights of the people because “it does politics to serve the masses and not to rule the country”.

Those who joined the party included Alauddin Bahadari, Shehzadi, Afraz Abbas Naqvi, Hafiz Zeeshan, Nabeel Kazmi, Khalil Kamran, Haji Shakeel, Shabnam Sial, Toni Shah, Salman Arshad, Imtiaz Qureshi, Anwar Khan, Khurram Pervaiz, Rana Wasif, Jafar Iqbal, Sudheer Khokhar, Tahir Gujjar, Arif Gujjar, Ashraf Nagra and others.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2021