OKARA: Efforts of Pakistan People’s Party co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari to revive his party in Punjab may not succeed until he manages to overcome deep-rooted differences in party’s local ranks.

Okara, dubbed as second Larkana during the ZAB era, is one such district where the party has suffered badly because of infighting at the local level.

The infighting accelerated when Manzoor Wattoo was made the Punjab president as Jialas never accepted him as a PPP man.

Power politics at the local level surfaced after the 2008 elections between PPP MNA Chaudhry Sajjadul Hasan and MPA and district president Muhammad Ashraf Khan Sohna. For some time issues between the two were managed by Muhammad Arif Chaudhry, a popular political figure in the city who later left the PPP and joined the PML-N.

The two MPs came at daggers drawn when a group backed by Sajjadul Hssan launched a campaign to remove elderly and founder PPP worker Alam Sher Khan Lodhi from the office of Okara city PPP president as he was loyal to Ashraf Sohna.

Later on, infighting between Sohna and Wattoo also surfaced when PPP district secretary-general Advocate Sibtain Khan Bhatti resigned from the party office due to differences with the Punjab PPP president.

Wattoo tried to fill the office by nominating his friend, Rana Gul Nasir, which was opposed at all levels across the district as Nasir had never been the PPP man.

The Sohna group sees Wattoo as an ‘extremely ambitious man’ who has managed nine important party offices for his family and friends. His son, MPA Khurram Jahangir Wattoo, is the central general secretary of the People’s Youth Organization, other son Mian Moazzam Wattoo is Punjab PPP council member, daughter Jahan Ara Wattoo is PPP women wing’s Okara district president, two brothers-in-law Mian Ahmad Shuja Wattoo and Mian Nasim Ahmad Wattoo and aides Nawab Ali Khan Kalas and Rana Gul Nasir also hold various offices at the district level.

Recently, party office bearers of Okara district met the co-chairperson at the Bilawal House in Lahore where the Wattoo and Sohna camps traded allegations and some of their supporters clashed physically.

Sources say the situation was shocking for Zardari who ordered an investigation to know who was at fault.

The Sohna group is of the view that the Wattoo camp with the support of newly-nominated PPP district secretary-general Farooq Ashraf Sangoka created this scene at the Bilawal House.

Wattoo on the other hand denies backing any group.

Local political observers say the PPP has no electable in Depalpur tehsil except Wattoo.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2014