GUJRAT: Though it is yet not clear how the Pakistan People’s Party will oust Prime Minister Imran Khan through its long march, the agitation has definitely helped the party in reactivating and mobilising its dormant workers in central Punjab, especially in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin districts.

Independent observers of local politics say that as a result of the march led by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, some known faces of the PPP in the region, who had earlier became dormant, either for being ignored by the party leadership or annoyed by some policies of the party in Punjab, were seen playing a key role in motivating its local cadres during the preparations for the march.

Two glaring examples in this regard, they say, are of families of Mushtaq Pagganwala and the late Ahmad Mukhtar (Servis Group) from Gujrat. Both the families which had not been active in the politics for almost a decade, not only got recharged ahead of the march, but also reactivated and motivated the disillusioned workers to work for the party cause. The exercise also helped the party to sort out the differences that had cropped up among the local cadres, they say.

They say that during preparations for the marchers stopover at Gujrat, Faisal Mukhtar and Mian Fakhar Pagganwala, the scions of late Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar and Mian Mushtaq Pagganwala, respectively, finally joined hands and organised corner meetings of youth, women and other wings of the party to reactivate its vital organs.

Dr Zahid Zaheer, the PPP Gujrat district secretary general, says it is due to the efforts of Pagganwala and late Ahmed Mukhtar (Servis group) families that the party chairman approved the PPP march’s stopover at Gujrat, adding that their collaboration may become a turning point in the politics of Gujrat.

Similarly, he says, Faisal Mukhtar visited the residence of Advocate Wazirul Nisa, the party’s Gujranwala division women wing president, who had contested the last general elections in 2018 as a PPP candidate from NA-69 (Gujrat), in connection with the preparations for the march.

After their meeting, Ms Nisa mobilised a good number of party workers, especially the women, and brought them to welcome the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari at the GTS Chowk in Gujrat.

A party official from Gujranwala division also cited example of Nadeem Afzal Chan, a political heavyweight from Mandi Bahauddin, who rejoined the PPP just two days before the march reached Gujrat, saying he (Chan) also helped in mobilising the workers from his native area.

Because of Chan’s efforts, he said, workers arrived at Gujrat and Sara I Alamgir in two groups to welcome to the chairman’s convoy.

He said that in Wazirabad and Gujranwala, the former PPP MPAs Ijaz Samman and Saud Hassan Dar made hectic efforts to arrange receptions for the march in their respective towns. Chairman Bilawal also stayed for a night at Mr Samman’s house at Wazirabad where a ‘tent city’ was set up to accommodate thousands of the march participants.

Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin have once been the strongholds of the PPP in central Punjab where it had clinched most of the national and provincial assemblies seats in 1993 and 2008 general elections. Nazar Muhammad Gondal, who had joined the PTI after defection from the PPP, had also been elected Mandi Bahauddin district Nazim in 2001 from the party’s platform.

Even in 2016 local bodies elections, Lalamusa was the only city where PPP’s nominee, a cousin of former information minster Qamar Zaman Kaira, had been elected chairman of the Municipal Committee.

Party sources say that Chairman Bilawal had been pleased with the Lalamusa and Gujrat cadres for putting up a good show by welcoming the march in the region.

A former PPP MNA, Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali Gull, who is now in the PML-N, also came at the GTS Chowk to welcome his previous party chief Bilawal. As the PPP chairman welcomed Mr Gull on the main truck in front of the rally, Gull was overwhelmed by emotions. However, former prime minister and Punjab PPP president Raja Pervaiz Ashraf announced from the stage that Mr Gull had come in his personal capacity to welcome the PPP chairman.

Many local analysts believe that the PPP may still face difficulties in regaining its lost ground in central Punjab, but the long march has definitely paid the party dividends in the shape of reactivated party workers who could be an asset in the future.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022