SAHIWAL: The city seems fully prepared for Sunday’s (today) public gathering of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), but PTI youth force, workers and organisers don’t look as enthusiastic as they were for the previous gathering of the party.

The rally venue, main roads and crossings are all decorated with PTI flags, flexes, streamers and banners. A tent and catering worker said around 10,000 chairs had been placed at the venue.

Faisal Dhakku and Shaikh Muhammad Chauhan, PTI district and Sahiwal city president, are supervising the arrangements.

They told Dawn that the PTI had organised corner meetings across the city and on Friday a camp had been installed at College Chowk to mobilise citizens for the rally.

Qaisar Guddo, who composes songs for PTI rallies along with producer DJ Wali Sons, said a new song sung by Faiz Miandad had been composed for the event.

Sources said that three days ago a PTI meeting had been called at Bhandari House where aspirants for party tickets were asked to donate for the rally; Rs100,000 and Rs200,000 had been collected from those intending to run for MPA and MNA slots in the 2018 elections on PTI tickets. It was also learnt that Rs2.5 million had been collected for the rally.

Former PTI MNA Rai Hassan Nawaz and Rai Azizullah will lead a delegation from their constituency. PTI District General Secretary Ali Shakoor said party office-bearers from Pakpattan and Arifwala will also join the gathering. PTI MPA Nabeela Khan said women had been mobilised for the gathering.

Local political circles from the PML-N, PPP, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and Jamaat-i-Islmai while commenting on the gathering said they expected less audience as compared to previous public gatherings.

They said last time several vendors selling different paraphernalia arrived a day before the rally to sell caps, scarves, shirts, stickers, flags, but this time no one had arrived from outside Sahiwal.

Chaudhry Sagheer Anjum, one of the aspirants for PP-221 ticket from the city, said the rally would be addressed by Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Jahangir Tareen, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, Aleem Kh​an and Shafqat Mahmood.

District Police Officer Dr Atif said they had devised a three-tier security plan and 1,700 policemen would be deputed for the gathering. Around 500 policemen had also arrived from other districts.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2017