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LAHORE, Oct 16: Pakistan People’s Party Punjab Secretary-General Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas has claimed that over 100,000 workers from across the province are likely to reach Rahim Yar Khan on Wednesday (today) to cross over to Sindh the following day to receive PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto at Karachi airport on Thursday.
Mr Abbas told Dawn that the workers who were reaching Karachi by train and buses were not included in the caravans reaching Rahim Yar Khan as they were scheduled to reach Karachi directly.
He said hundreds of buses were leaving or had already left for Rahim Yar Khan and more would leave on Wednesday.
According to him, a caravan of about 100 buses was the first which left Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, for Rahim Yar Khan. Similarly, big caravans also left Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Attock, Sargodha, Mianwali, Khushab and other parts of the province for the southern Punjab’s bordering district with Sindh province.
Mr Abbas said the caravans had left after about two weeks of mass mobilisation during which the PPP workers took out processions and organised torch-bearing rallies. Last of the processions were taken out all over the province on Monday evening.
He hoped the government would pose no problem for the caravans reaching Karachi.
He said the welcome on PPP chairperson’s returning home would be unprecedented, as it would surpass the huge reception on April 10, 1986. However, he said, it would be a smooth process.
But in case the government attempted to arrest Ms Bhutto, she would not go (to jail) alone, as hundreds of thousands of workers would follow her anywhere she was to be taken, he added.
PPP Punjab information secretary Farzana Raja said all those who had applied for PPP tickets for the forthcoming general elections, had been directed to arrange at least two buses to transport workers to Rahim Yar Khan from where Punjab PPP President Shah Mahmood Qureshi would lead a massive procession into Sindh and reach Karachi airport to receive Ms Bhutto.
BADR: PPP Secretary-General Jahangir Badr told a news conference on Tuesday the Punjab government was playing a mischief by removing banners and flags from public and private buildings hoisted ahead of Benazir’s arrival.
He said the rulers had demonstrated by their mischief that they stood unnerved by the arrival of the PPP chief who, he said, was also bringing with her a ‘revolutionary change’ in the country’s political and democratic direction.
The PPP, he said, was committed to establishing an egalitarian society on the basis of party’s founding principles, which spelled socio-economic justice to all without discrimination.
