RAHIM YAR KHAN: The differences within the district cadre of the PPP have started surfacing before the award of tickets of provincial and national assemblies for the upcoming general election.

People’s Youth Organisation (PYO) Divisional President Hassan Hundal on Saturday released a video message for the media, alleging that the National Assembly candidate of the PPP, Mian Aamir Shahbaz, had orchestrated a murder attempt on him.

Giving details, he said a function was arranged to mark Karsaaz (Karachi) incident on Oct 18 where more than 2,000 PPP workers had gathered at Chowk Bahadurpur. When he was returning to the site after offering Maghrib prayer, four personal employees of Aamir Shahbaz, including Rais Yaqoob Chachar, Rana Sajid, Kashif Baloch, attempted to murder him.

He said the attackers were masked and armed with sticks, cricket wickets. They tortured him for 10 minutes before some PPP youth wing members rescued him. Mr Hundal said he had informed PPP South Punjab President Makhdum Syed Ahmed about the incident.

Mr Shahbaz told this correspondent that it was not the first episode of the tussle, saying that the first quarrel occurred eight months back at the residence of senior PPP leader Farooq Aziz Gujjar, second fight of PPP youth workers was witnessed in a party function at Nooraywali while the third episode of the fight was seen on Sept 20, 2023, at an event held for Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s birthday. He claimed that on Oct 18, he was not present at the function and could not be held responsible for any personal act of his employees. He alleged that his competitors in the party hatched the conspiracy against him to deprive him of the candidature of the national assembly election.

PPP District President Sardar Habibur Rehman Gopang told Dawn it was not a quarrel within the party but a fight between the personalities. However, he said he would investigate the matter.

Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023