PPP to launch membership campaign
ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: The ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has decided to reactivate the party membership drive that was stalled due to the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a terrorist attack in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
The decision to re-launch the drive throughout the country, including Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, was taken by PPP Co-chairman President Asif Zardari at a meeting held in the Presidency late Friday night, said presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar on Sunday.
Besides Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the meeting was attended by PPP Secretary-General Senator Jehangir Badr, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, president of the party’s Punjab chapter Rana Aftab, PPP NWFP president Syed Zahir Shah, Senator Raza Rabbani, MNA Fouzia Habib, Rukhsana Bangash, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed and Farhatullah Babar.
President Zardari constituted a special committee to finalise plans for launching the membership drive. The committee, headed by secretary-general Jehangir Badr, comprises party presidents of Punjab, Frontier, Sindh, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. MNA Fouzia Habib has also been nominated as a member of the committee.
In the meeting, MNA Fouzia Habib gave a detailed briefing and told the participants as to how late Benazir Bhutto had envisaged the drive to be launched and what measures had already been taken.
President Zardari asked the newly-formed committee to draw up detailed work plans for completing the membership drive in all the union councils of the country within the shortest possible time.
He said latest technology be used to computerise the members’ data that should include all basic information about members and workers to be stored in the central data bank of the party maintained at the Central Secretariat in Islamabad. He also called for maintaining computerised data of the members in each province in the party’s provincial secretariats. The president desired that incentives be given to those making maximum contributions to the membership drive and enlist the largest number of people as members. [DAWN]
