PESHAWAR, Aug 25: Former interior minister Maj-Gen (retd) Naseerullah Khan Babar, PPP candidate from Nowshehra, has said the next general election will be a battle between the progressive and retrogressive forces in the country.

He said this while welcoming a big group of PPP (Sherpao) who rejoined the mainstream PPP at a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday.

A large number of PPP (Sherpao) officer-bearers, led by Saeed Ahmed Khan, expressed their confidence in the leadership of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and provincial chief Khwaja Mohammad Khan Hoti and rejoined the PPP, saying they had returned to their home.

About 17 central and provincial council members, presidents and secretaries of district and tehsil and 40 office-bearers of general wards resigned from the PPP (Sherpao) and joined the PPP.

Talking to newsmen, Saeed Ahmed Khan, dissidents’ leader, said he and his friends had joined the party in 1968 and waged a struggle for a just socio-economic system and people’s democracy under the leadership of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

They had also struggled against the Ziaul Haq dictatorship and undergone imprisonment terms, but when the PPP removed Aftab Khan Sherpao from the post of senior vice-president of the party, they joined hands with Mr Sherpao.

“We had been with Mr Sherpao during his odd days, but when he supported Musharraf’s referendum, we severed our relations with him. If Zia’s referendum was wrong, how Musharraf’s referendum is right, Mr Sherpao has no answer of this. Later, he changed party policy and tilted towards the government which also forced us to part our ways with him”, he added.

He said, now he and other members of the group were part of the PPP and repose confidence in the leadership of Benazir Bhutto. “Our joining is unconditional we haven’t put any demand. We are followers of ZAB”, he added.

PPP provincial vice-president Qamar Abbas, a former director general of the Intelligence Bureau Masood Sharif and other local PPP leaders were present at the occasion.

Gen Babar said his party had been struggling against the opportunists, reactionary and retrogressive forces, who had been supporters of dictators in the past.

“PPP is a liberal and progressive party and opposed to the reactionary forces sitting under the umbrella of the religious mohaz”, he added.

Qamar Abbas welcomed the new comers in the fold of party and said they have returned to their old home.

Their rejoining of the PPP would strengthen it in its struggle against dictatorship, he added.