KARACHI, Sept 7: Chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party Benazir Bhutto has said that her party was negotiating from a position of strength and goodwill and did not need a “no objection certificate” from any quarter to launch a fresh movement.

She said this in a message released by Bilawal House on Friday, through which she congratulated the PPP workers of Karachi for taking out a grand torchlight ‘Welcome Benazir Rally’ from the mausoleum of Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi last Sunday.

She claimed that the participation of thousands of PPP workers in the rally had shown to the world that the highly conscious party workers understood the recent moves that the PPP was making for consolidating the gains made in the movement for restoring the independence of the judiciary.

The rally had also put to rest the “reactionary and provocative negative propaganda that (suggested) PPP workers were confused and disappointed over the dialogue process,” she said.

Ms Bhutto, in her message released by Jameel Soomro, said that the PPP had always remained in the forefront of the people’s struggle. Lawyers belonging to the party had played a distinguished role in the movement for the independence of the judiciary, she claimed.

“Be it May 12 or July 17, it was the participation and blood of PPP workers which had fortified the movement,” the statement said.

In obvious reference to Nawaz Sharif, she reminded the PPP workers that “in spite of the vendetta let loose against its leaders by the government installed by the establishment after the dismissal of her elected government and the brutal murder of her brother, the PPP had voted for the 13th and 14th Amendments which undid Article 58(2)(b) and floor crossings.

Meanwhile, the local chapter of the PPP will hold a workers’ meeting outside Bilawal House on Sunday to discuss the arrangements of Benazir Bhutto’s return.