LAHORE, March 2: Punjab organization of the Pakistan People’s Party launched its mass contact campaign on Saturday with the pledge that the party would strike no deal with any military dictator.

A drizzle forced the maiden meeting, scheduled originally to be held outside the Shah Jamal residence of the Lahore organization president Mian Misbahur Rahman, to be shifted to a marriage hall in Gulberg. Several dozen party leaders and workers participated.

Provincial president Qasim Zia said he would soon draw up a programme for touring various districts of the Punjab.

He reiterated his statement that Ms Benazir Bhutto would return to the country before the elections.

Mr Zia said the PPP would be organized for the elections and sincere and devoted workers, neglected in the past, would be brought to the fore.

Assailing the government for bringing “turncoats” together, the PPP leader said the masses had rejected such characters in the local elections and would again reject them in the general elections.

Regarding the government claims that the foreign exchange reserves had shot up to $5 billion, he said they were useless until the common man was provided some relief.

Deputy information secretary Altaf Qureshi said the PPP planned to contest the elections with some reservations. He said elections without Ms Bhutto would lack significance and credibility. All political parties, specially the ones committed to making Pakistan a progressive state, should be allowed to take part in the polls as any attempt to keep them out of the arena would enhance dangers to the country’s integrity, the PPP leader said.

He said no country could prosper under military rule. It was for this reason that the PPP was mobilizing its cadres to prevent the government from wriggling out of its commitment to hold elections. About allegations against various PPP leaders, Mr Qureshi said some of them had already been cleared by courts. As for others, he said, the rulers would fail to find anything against them.

Regarding former president Farooq Leghari, he said the man who had dismissed the PPP government on charges of corruption had been found to have caused Rs13 million of public money to be misspent. He believed that more evidence would surface against Mr Leghari.

Mr Qureshi said the PPP was committed to setting up a special commission to hold inquiries against political and military leaders who had squandered national wealth.

Former federal minister Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for both Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif, said nobody should be kept out of the electoral process. Else, he warned, the whole exercise would lose its credibility. This, he stressed, would harm Gen Pervez Musharraf more than anybody else.

Mr Rahman criticized the government for enhancing the gas and petrol prices despite its claims of having received huge amounts of foreign assistance. He demanded that the money be spent on projects for which it had been donated.

Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, Naveed Chaudhry, Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar and Prof Ijazul Hasan were also among the participants.