Bhutto Under Fire From Right-Wing Factions
NEW DELHI. Sept. 7- Nemesis appears to be catching up with the Pakistan People’s Party leader Mr. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto. The mercurial leader of the powerful West Pakistani party has been under severe attack from Rightwing factions for some time past now, and competent observes see the hand of the military junts behind the campaign.
Mr. Bhutto—who has lately started attacking the military regime’s handling of the Bangladesh crisis his critics from the Rightwing point out, is as guilty if not more, as the Awami League leaders of East Bengal. Exception has been taken to some of his Press statements and interestingly his month-old observations in a Teheran weekly are now cited as evidence of his “duplicity”
What should be causing immense worry to Mr. Bhutto however is not this concerted Rightwing assault on him but the possibility of the strength of his party being eroded.
Inspired by the military junta, the old guard of the Muslim League (it has spilt into many factions) is trying to assert itself in the political life of West Pakistan and it is from here that the threat to Mr. Bhutto’s strength particularly in Punjab has emerged.
The military rulers have for some time now and their efforts have been redoubled after Mr. Bhutto made some of those “unwelcome” observations been assiduously trying to forge unity of some sort among the Muslim League factions.
The efforts have act not so far fully succeeded, but there is a possibility that the old bogey of “Islam. in danger” may bring at least the Rightist majority to a common platform. The beginning of this trend, which should be anathema to Mr. Bhutto’s radical supporters, have already been noticed. And disconcertingly for Mr. Bhutto the first dent has been made in his stronghold Punjab, Sind, by and large continues to supports him
But Mr. Bhutto is nothing if not an adept at playing the power game at least as well as his opponents. His statement that the military regime was harassing Leftist patriots in East Bengal is of much significance in this regard. Obviously, Mr. Bhutto is trying to gain acceptability of some sort among the Bengali progressives, particularly those belonging to the Bhashani-Toha factions.
At the same time this helps him project himself once again as the symbol of progressivism in Pakistan which in the light of the pre-Yahya upsurge which caused President Ayub Khan to quit, can only do him good in the eyes of the young Pakistanis. Simultaneously by showing solicitude even belatedly for the suffering. East Bengalis he established himself again among the educated sections as the real defender of the integrity of Pakistan in the name of which the military rulers with Mr. Bhutto’s initial connivance have let loose unprecedented repression on the eastern wing.
Notwithstanding Mr. Bhutto’s undoubted capacity to survive the challenge to his political cancer, it remains to be seen how exactly he outlives a dangerous military Right-wing alliance, that is if he does not in he meantime perform one of this characteristic turn abouts.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 8.9.1971