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LAHORE:
In an attempt to reclaim political relevance in a city where it has steadily disappeared, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Lahore branch has announced a “Kashmir Bana Ga Pakistan” rally on February 1.
The party is touting the rally as both a demonstration of political presence in the provincial capital and a tentative step towards reviving the party’s fortunes in Punjab.
The rally, which will be held amid what party leaders privately diagnose as a persistent political void, is seen as an attempt to test the waters for political space in Lahore, a city long seen as crucial to any serious provincial comeback.
For the PPP, whose organizational footprint in Punjab has steadily shrunk 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 pronounced, leaving the party dependent on only a handful of electables.
Among the factors contributing to this erosion, party insiders point to opportunistic decision-making, an absence of sustained leadership in the province and an organizational drift that eroded its grassroots presence.
Although the party’s central leadership, the Bhutto-Zardari clan, made repeated visits to Punjab, these failed to translate into meaningful political gains. Local leadership, meanwhile, gradually lost momentum and fell to the margins. At times, figures like former PPP parliamentary leader in Punjab Hasan Murtaza broke through the airwaves with sharp and occasionally witty interventions, but despite keeping the party visible, these efforts yielded few tangible results.
The party has recently undergone a reorganization in Punjab, bringing new faces into leadership roles at the local level. Among the changes, the most significant was in Lahore, where fiery leader Faisal Mir was handed the reins.
The move carried added weight given Lahore’s symbolic and strategic importance as a potential launch pad for a wider revival.
According to party insiders, Faisal Mir, who had been waiting in the wings for several years for a meaningful organizational role, was keen to send a strong message both within the party and outside.
An event was therefore planned, but as the PPP currently maintains a delicate political understanding with the PML-N, a neutral topic was chosen as the theme of the meeting.
As part of the mobilization efforts, the PPP Lahore Division also ran an awareness campaign for the Kashmir Bachao Rally, scheduled for February 1. It was announced that PPP Lahore would hold the rally from Nasir Bagh to Punjab Assembly. Speaking on the occasion, Faisal Mir said that all wings of the PPP were mobilized to ensure the success of the February 1 Kashmir rally.
