Islamabad - Faryal Talpur, Pakistan Peoples Party’s senior leader and sister of former President Asif Ali Zardari, has landed the party in the soup as senior leaders opted to stay away from the meetings with Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in her presence, The Nation has learnt.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari arrived Islamabad along with Faryal Talpur last week to reorganise the PPP at district level as well as for preparations of the upcoming local bodies election in Punjab and Sindh provinces. The chairman reviewed the failure of PPP in recently held local bodies election in KP and had also met with Kashmiri Hurriat leaders. He took serious notice of the absence of party’s leaders including former Premier Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Imtaiz Safdar Warriach, Senator Rehman Malik, Rukhsana Bangash and Firdous Ashaq Awan during the meetings with district level leaderships.
Sources in PPP informed The Nation that former minister and PPP Punjab President Imtaiz Safdar Warriach did not attend the party meeting chaired by Bilawal Bhutto due to presence of Faryal Talpur, despite the fact that he was especially invited for discussion over PPP Punjab chapter. Former PM Gilani had reached Zardari House for meeting with the chairman but he requested the chairman that he would not attend workers meeting. Senator Rehman Malik also avoided to attend any meeting, sources added.
The sources disclosed that local leaders of different districts of Punjab including Sheikhupura, Nankana Sahib, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Lahore and Gujranwala spoke aloud against the top party leadership’s attitude, especially of Faryal Talpur and Mian Mazoor Wattoo, during meetings with the chairman.
An unfortunate incident happened with senior party member Mahreen Anwar Raja, when she was asked to leave the chair for unit in-charge of PPP Lahore Samina Khalid Ghurki during meeting of PPP Lahore with the chairman. Sources said the PPP leader Sultan Asghar from Nankana Sahib criticised PPP’s modern politics style saying it has lost the legacy of PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who believed in giving respect to party workers. But now leadership has started ignoring party’s local leadership and workers who were the real strength of the party, he added.
The sources said that no party district president had access to party chairman and co-chairman and even they could not suggest or record protest against Faryal Talpur’s meddling in party affairs. The situation worsened during the meeting of PPP Gujrat chapter with the chairman when senior party member Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gul criticised Talpur’s interference in party matters at every level. Ghazanfar Gul and Faryal Talpur exchanged harsh words, sources added.
The chairman controlled the situation and assured party leaders and workers that he would address their reservations himself next time, the sources added.
Talking to the Nation, a senior party leader admitted that the local leadership of PPP had registered complaints against Talpur and requested the chairman to look after the party matters personally. He said that Talpur was the president of PPP women wing but she could not activate it due to lack of her interest but at the same time she was not willing to hand over the forum to any active woman member. He said that she wanted to control and resolve the party matters as per her own policies.
He said that PPP was the only party which believed in women empowerment and it had introduced several projects for women including First Women Bank and Benazir Income Support Programme.