LAHORE - Following restrictions applied by the Election Commission on the heads of political parties and the sitting parliamentarians to take part in the electioneering, the PPP has decided to fuel its election campaign for the upcoming local bodies’ elections by throwing Bilawal Bhutto Zardari into the political arena.  
As is the case with other political parties, the new election rules hit many senior PPP leaders including Asif Ali Zardari who cannot run party’s election campaign.
The two-year bar on Zardari restricting him from politicking for being a former president of Pakistan would expire in September this year. The local polls are also scheduled to be held in September but the campaign would start much earlier and Zardari would not be available to the party for electioneering.
The young Bilawal, on the other hand, is neither heading the PPP-P which is going to contest the coming elections, nor is he the member of any Assembly. He is Patron-in-Chief of the PPP which is not taking part in the coming elections.  
Sources in the PPP said that there would be no legal restriction on Bilawal to run any future election campaigns, and hence the party has decided to bring him back for the purpose.  
Asif Ali Zardari on Monday announced that Bilawal had reached Dubai for his onward journey to Pakistan, though a decision about a precise date of his arrival here is yet be made.
Some party leaders, however, believe that Bilawal may not be able to lead party’s election campaign due to security threats. “His father cannot take the risk of exposing his son before the public under the current security situation”, said a party source who saw little chance of Bilawal campaigning for the party despite his presence in Pakistan.
Another PPP man said that arrangements may be made for Bilawal to address election rallies through video link and some meetings may be held at Bilawal House which is quite secure a place for political activities.  
“Bilawal’s mere presence in Pakistan would make a lot of difference”, he asserted, adding that it would rejuvenate the party in a big way.
There is a section of opinion in the PPP which argues that Bilawal Bhutto remains a last hope for the distressed jiyalas who see in him a leader who has the guts to galvanise the party whose popularity among the masses is touching the lowest ebb.  
Since the absence of Bilawal from the country’s political scene, Asif Ali Zardari has been under constant pressure from the party men to bring his son back.
At several party meetings he chaired at Bilawal House Lahore in the last one year, it had been a consistent view of some party men that party cadres from Punjab were simply not in a mood to accept any body except Bilawal as their leader.
Zardari had to do a lot of explaining to convince them that it was not the right time to launch Bilawal in politics. “He is young, emotional and immature. He is a misfit in the current political situation, and would be called back at the right time”, Zardari would tell the angry party men.