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LAHORE:
Aiming to regain political relevance in a city where it has been progressively disappearing from sight, the Lahore chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has announced a “Kashmir Bana Ga Pakistan” rally on February 1.
The party is promoting the rally as a show of political presence in the provincial capital and as a tentative step towards reviving the party’s fortunes in Punjab.
The rally, which will take place amid what party leaders privately diagnose as a persistent political vacuum, is seen as an effort to test the political space in Lahore, a city long considered crucial to any serious provincial recovery.
For the PPP, whose organizational presence in Punjab has been steadily shrinking over the years, the event marks a renewed attempt to re-enter the political conversation.
Once a dominant force, the PPP’s decline in Punjab has been gradual but steep, leaving the party dependent on only a handful of voters.
Among the factors that contribute to this erosion, party insiders point out opportunistic decision-making, an absence of sustained leadership in the province and an organizational drift that emptied its presence at the grassroots.
Although the central leadership of the party, the Bhutto-Zardari clan, made repeated visits to Punjab, these did not result in significant political achievements. Meanwhile, the local leadership gradually lost momentum, retreating to the margins. At times, figures such as former PPP parliamentary leader in Punjab Hasan Murtaza burst onto the airwaves with sharp and sometimes witty interventions, but despite keeping the party visible, these efforts produced few tangible results.
The party has recently undergone a reshuffle in Punjab, bringing in new faces to leadership positions at the local level. Among the changes, the most significant came in Lahore, where fierce leader Faisal Mir was given the reins.
The move carried added weight given the symbolic and strategic importance of Lahore as a possible launching pad for a broader revival.
According to party sources, Faisal Mir, who had been waiting behind the scenes for several years for a significant organizational role, was keen to send a strong message both inside and outside the party.
Therefore, an event was planned, but as the PPP currently maintains a delicate political understanding with the PML-N, a neutral issue was selected as the theme of the rally.
As part of the mobilization campaign, the Lahore branch of PPP also carried out an awareness campaign for the Kashmir Bachao rally, scheduled for February 1. It was announced that the Lahore PPP would hold the rally from Nasir Bagh to the Punjab Assembly. On the occasion, Faisal Mir said that all wings of the PPP were being mobilized to ensure the success of the February 1 Kashmir Rally.
