Islamabad: Unlike the early nineties when the late former prime minister and PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, marched twice on Islamabad at the head of huge processions of her party’s activists and supporters in an effort to get rid of the then PML-N government, this time round the Pakistan Peoples Party is not going to mount a long march to the capital but instead hold rallies and public meetings in various cities across the country, according to the party’s spokesman, Senator Farhatullah Babar.
“This time, long march will not be staged but many small protest rallies and public meetings will be held in different cities, including the federal capital,” he said yesterday.
Babar said that PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would try to reach every protest rally or meeting to which he would be invited.
The events would be organised by the party’s district or city chapters.
He said the party’s leadership had already instructed all the PPP chapters to hold rallies and public meetings in their districts and cities.
When asked if a public meeting would be organised in Islamabad, Babar said: “Definitely, the PPP’s capital city chapter will also hold a public meeting that will be addressed by Bhutto-Zardari.”
On the occasion of the ninth death anniversary of his mother last December 27, Bhutto-Zardari had announced that PPP would mount a long march in protest against the non-fulfilment of his four demands.
Another senior party leader, Senator Taj Haider, who has been tasked with monitoring the protest rallies and public meetings, yesterday, described “the PPP’s long march programme” as a broad-based protest campaign that would continue till the last days of the PML-N government.
