LAHORE, Feb 11: To seek safe return of Ms Benazir Bhutto to the country, the PPP has decided to utilize its influence in local councils.

As a pressure tactic, the party is planning to direct Nazims and councillors who had won with its backing to tender resignations if the government does not allow the PPP chairperson to return to the country.

As a first step in this regard, Ms Nahid Khan, the political secretary to the chairperson, on Monday directed the opposition leader in Lahore District Council, Chaudhry Asghar, to get passed resolutions from various town and union councils demanding the government facilitate the return of Ms Bhutto to Pakistan.

Talking to Chaudhry Asghar at the residence of Haji Azizur Rahman Chan here, she directed him to mentally prepare the councillors for resigning from their offices if needed.

Earlier talking to reporters, Ms Khan said the party would not go to polls without its chairperson.

Asked whether the party would boycott the polls if the government did not allow Ms Bhutto to take part in it, she said no possibility could be ruled out in politics. However, the party would take a decision in this regard at an appropriate time.

When her attention was drawn towards the statement of PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq about striking an alliance with the PPP if the government pushed them to the wall, she said all possibilities could be explored in fight against a “common enemy”.

About the statement of Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi against the PPP chairperson, she said he was not a spokesman for the masses. Ms Bhutto had been victimized through the registration of false cases, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had also “confessed” in his recent interview with an Urdu daily that cases against the PPP leader were motivated.

The Supreme Court verdict against former LHC justice Malik Qayyum Khan also vindicated victimization of Ms Bhutto at the hands of certain people, she said.

She warned President Musharraf to avoid jeopardizing the future of the country and understand his responsibility “otherwise the situation in the coming months would make him understand the realities”.