The city woke up late in the afternoon, and partially, to the arrival of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who returned to his home town on Saturday after four years of self-imposed exile, and even that political activity was restricted to the venue of public rally and a few kilometers radius around it sparing the rest of Lahore.
For the rest of the city, it was business as usual for better part of the day missing festivities on the roads that are normally attached to such a “mega political event,” as his party PML-N tried to portray it. Though the rally was well attended, it failed to make an impact on the city missing what they call, the Lahori flavour. Lahore which was considered PML-N fortress gave a cold response to Nawaz homecoming welcome.
The PML-N had an explanation to offer for restricted-to-the-venue greeting reception. “The event is organised as such. It had two focal points: public rally at Iqbal Park and Nawaz Sharif. It is for this reason no en-route public interaction of former prime minister was considered: he was directly taken to the venue from airport. Secondly, no other speech was allowed. The success of the party can thus only be measured on twin factors: how well-attended the rally is and how well-received his speech is going to be,” claims a party leader.
This party planning, however, defies city history of such events, especially if the [recent] PTI’s 2011 rally is the benchmark. On Oct 30, 2011, the city witnessed massive day-long noisy and lively celebrations on the roads. All main arteries were taken over by motorcyclist youth, playing party songs, honking horns of vehicles and all kinds of buses, vans and coasters ferrying party men to different points and creating psychological impact.
“Both trains were jam-packed and probably the number of passengers/workers in each train was over 3,000,” he said, adding that the trains led by Mr Zubair (from Karachi) and Mr Memon (from Hyderabad) arrived at Lahore at 1:15pm and 2pm, respectively. As soon as the trains arrived, the PML-N workers waiting for them in Lahore welcomed them by throwing rose petals on them.
The official added the first special train arrived at Lahore from Peshawar and it was led by the PML-N Peshawar office-bearers. The train, which arrived from Quetta at 3:10pm, also had the PML-N office-bearers. These trains were carrying almost 2,000 passengers since the capacity of the coaches was less than those arriving from Karachi and Hyderabad.
According to another official source at the station, PML-N Lahore chapter office-bearers also provided the workers with breakfast and lunch at the main station and Badami Bagh station. After eating meal, the workers went to the Greater Iqbal Park (Minar-i-Pakistan) the venue of the PML-N’s public rally.
He said those who arrived from Peshawar and Rawalpindi didn’t disembark at main station as they all preferred to leave the train at Badami Bagh station from where the venue was nearer than the main station.
Lahore Station Railway Police SHO Shehzad Ahmad said foolproof security arrangements were made to guard all the passengers at the station on Saturday in a bid to avert any untoward event.
“Keeping in view the arrival of the special trains and expected increased rush of passengers, we increased deployment of police officials at all platforms at the station,” Mr Ahmad told Internews. He said the deployment of more policemen would continue till departure of the workers by trains from Lahore to their cities.
