KARACHI: The return of Nabil Gabol to the ‘mother party’ is considered to be a plan jointly conceived by the leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the veteran politician for the next year’s general elections in which the party is likely to exploit the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) internal turmoil to its own benefit.

Mr Gabol is among the ‘missing’ links that the PPP leadership has planned to put in the proper places to give the party a fighting chance in the polls scheduled to be held in 2018.

With Mr Gabol’s estrangement with the PPP for four years, the party brought many leaders into its fold but could not find a suitable replacement, which reflected in its performance in the 2013 general elections and 2015 local government elections. “In those two elections, we lost even our safe seats from Keamari and Malir and fetched embarrassing results from Lyari,” said a PPP leader.

The PPP succumbed to the demands of the then leader of the banned People’s Amn Committee, headed by Uzair Baloch, and accepted the nominations dictated by the latter for the National and Sindh Assembly seats.

Because of PPP’s waning mass support in Lyari, a stronghold it never lost an election from since 1970, the party won less than half of the seats in the LG election and could only win the district municipal corporation in Karachi South with the support of independents along with other political groups and parties.

Mr Gabol had left the PPP in 2013 and thereafter joined the MQM. “Nabil Gabol is certainly a controversial party leader,” said a Karachi-based PPP leader, “but we should realise that he was among the party cadres who were closest to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.”

As Mr Gabol recently spoke about his differences with former home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza, who had been a close aide of ex-president Asif Ali Zardari before becoming a critic of the party’s top leadership, it emerged that Mr Gabol had quit the party ‘primarily’ because of Dr Mirza.

“With Zulfikar Mirza no longer being in the PPP, Nabil saw no point in joining any other party but the PPP,” according to a party leader.

Split with MQM

Mr Gabol forged camaraderie with former federal minister for ports and shipping Babar Ghori, who belonged to the MQM, when he was made minister of state for ports and shipping. But later he reportedly developed differences with Mr Ghori and resigned. However, the relations between the two improved a great deal afterwards. In 2015, Mr Gabol abandoned the MQM but didn’t join any other party until now.

“I had differences with Zulfikar Mirza, the root cause of which was that Lyari was virtually handed over to the [People’s] Amn Committee,” Mr Gabol lately said in an interview with a private TV channel.

Although some critics blamed Mr Gabol for being one of those who had thrown Lyari before the notorious gangs, he, however, had always refused the charge.

The situation improved only after the apex committee, which supervised targeted operation against militants and criminals in the city, got Lyari cleared of gangs.

Sidelined by PPP leadership

“Nabil left the PPP because party leader Asif Zardari sidelined him like many party leaders who had close association with Benazir Bhutto,” said a PPP leader.

“[Asif] Zardari tested everyone else in Karachi and Lyari in the absence of Nabil, including those who had a direct role in making Lyari a living hell, but he found that the neighbourhood and other parts of Karachi were virtually slipping out of the PPP’s hands,” added the leader.

This, say critics and party cadres, forced the PPP leadership to look for heavyweights to restore people’s confidence in the party and make inroads in unexplored constituencies.

The PPP had already got Hakeem Baloch back who had been the only MNA of the PML-N in Sindh. Now with Mr Gabol’s return, the PPP finds itself in a comfortable position for a fresh launch in Karachi.

“I had been approached by the PTI thrice but I decided to join the PPP, because it is the party I feel [I] belonged to,” said Mr Gabol.

In addition to Nabil Gabol, said sources in the PPP, Dr Ishratul Ibad, Sindh’s longest serving governor and formerly an MQM leader, is ‘in the loop’ with Mr Zardari and might also join the party in future.

The PPP leadership is vying to win at least 20 provincial assembly seats from Karachi in the next elections. To accomplish this colossal task Mr Gabol is among the basic players to chart the future scheme. The party has already got several local leaders and cadres from other parties in Sindh, which shows those joining it clearly understand the power of provincial politics by ignoring the PML-N, which rules Islamabad.

Leaders from the PML-N, the PTI and the PML-Functional, who have joined the PPP, could strengthen the party in the rest of Sindh but Mr Gabol has a key role to play as far as the PPP’s future strategy for the metropolis is concerned.

“Though he is not an undisputed figure in Lyari and Karachi as a whole, he is an astute player of politics here,” said a party leader. “And for elections the party needs a good planner, which he certainly is.”

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2017