ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: The participants of a gathering of sidelined PPP workers headed by Naheed Khan on Saturday held former president Asif Ali Zardari responsible for the party’s rout in the May 11 elections and advised him and his family to stay away from the party affairs.

Talking to mediapersons after the convention of the dissident party workers at her farmhouse, Ms Khan said young Bilawal Bhutto would receive the support of genuine party workers if he followed the legacy of his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mother Benazir Bhutto and did not carry the baggage of his father.

Former member of the PPP central executive committee Dr Safdar Abbasi along with a number of old party faces from all parts of the country, including Fayyaz Khan, Prof Nisar Safdar, Gen Ihsan, Ibne Rizvi, Nawab Khattak and Kunwar Zahid, were also present.

It was the first gathering of the dissident party workers after the expiry of the term of Asif Zardari in the presidency.

Through a resolution, the participants asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to “fulfil his often-repeated promise of bringing the killers, financiers, perpetrators and planners” of Ms Bhutto’s assassination to book.

Ms Khan, who had served as political secretary to Ms Bhutto for over two decades, claimed that the PPP leadership was not hereditary and did not belong to just one family.

She vowed to reorganise the party on democratic and ideological lines.

The participants announced launching of a mass-contact drive that will culminate in a workers’ convention to be held in Lahore on November 30.

Ms Khan criticised the Election Commission of Pakistan for rejecting her plea to get the PPP registered “in the name of genuine PPP workers.” She said the ECP’s decision had already been challenged before the court.

Earlier, the participants of the convention lashed out at the policies pursued by the PPP leadership during its five-year government that ended in March.

The resolution released to the media stated: “Due to the takeover of the party affairs by self-centered leadership, a serious vacuum of leadership has been created and unless this void is filled through a genuine democratic process, the party would lose its popularity among the citizens.”

It said during the last five years of the party’s rule the self-centered leadership kept the party hostage to the whims of the PML-Q in Punjab, the MQM in Sindh and the ANP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.