Sugata Bose raises questions on Pakistan People's Party's

TMC leader Sugata Bose, who made a rousing speech in Parliament today on the JNU row, enquired about the present stature of Pakistan's Leftist PPP party.
"Has the Pakistan People's Party now been reduced to a benign regional party, which once had made its mark with a strong support in Punjab and is now sliding in that province," Bose posed the question to visiting Pakistani politician and former diplomat Syeda Abida Hussain.
Bose was among the panelists at the launch of Hussain's political biography 'Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman' here.
Congress leader and former diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyer was also present.

Outlining the trajectory of the 1967-founded PPP, which once had been regarded as one of the most influential parties in Pakistan and was voted to power five times, Hussain said its leader Asif Ali Zardari had failed to endear himself to the people who harboured deep hostility towards him and viewed him as "a brigand and a thief".
"In the last three years nothing happened to brighten his prospects. People still deeply dislike Asif Zardari," Hussain said.

The author also referred to the arrest of Uzair Baloch, who is allegedly involved in the killing of Khalid Shahenshah, the former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto's security chief at the time of her assassination, and who is alleged to have good relations with the PPP.

Hussain, who was the first woman to be popularly elected
as Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and also served as Pakistan's ambassador to the US, said people in her country had an open mind about his son Bilwal Bhutto Zardari.
"Bilwal Bhutto Zardari, people have an open mind but to win Punjab back he would have to work really hard. If he has the capacity for hardwork then he can win," she said.
She also said, "PPP is the only liberal left of the centre party we have at the moment. We have a right wing government in power and there is a large constituency in Punjab that is Left wing and I hope that the PPP will come to power soon."

Meanwhile, Bose today in his Lok Sabha speech on the Jawaharlal Nehu University row rebuked the "heartless government" for its failure to listen to the cries of despair from society's marginalised.
Bose, the grandson of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, told the Lok Sabha Speaker that he was not a communist but "would stand in support to the right to freedom of expression by young students who maybe inspired by Marx as well as Ambedkar."
He condemned the "acts of vigilantism by self-appointed protectors of the nation foments a climate of fear."
"I believe that students, teachers, university personnel - all be permitted to express opinions freely, without fear, even if they conflict with the government's political stances," he said and called for an end to the "witch-hunt for anti-nationals and the shameful scapegoating of university students".