Welcome New PTI Information Secretary
By Rais Khan
Fremont, CA
When a storm grips a lake, new and fresh water replaces the old and stagnant mass. So is the case with PTI. It is in a state of tsunami, the old is being replaced by the new. With this spirit in mind, we welcome the new Information Secretary to his new onerous assignment.
Mr. Mahmood carries with him rich experience from the PPP where he remained the party’s information arm. He is a propagandist par excellence and knows best the art of defending his party and its leadership. In 1996, when he was a PPP Senator, and visited Chicago as member of an official delegation, Pakistanis living in this city confronted him with a barrage of complex questions especially about the involvement of Mr. ten per cent and the royal couple in national plunder. He strongly contradicted any such move by Mr. Zardari or anyone else in the PPP government and termed it false propaganda of the detractors of the PPP. But three months after his rejection of such charges, Mr. Leghari dismissed the PPP government on corruption charges. Mr. Mahmood was quick enough to eschew his words and jumped on the Leghari bandwagon to secure a slot in federal cabinet.
He has been advocating democratic values all along, during his association with PPP and later on as a columnist. But he had no qualms to join Musharraf’s autocratic dispensation at the first available opportunity.
Now that PTI is assuming the size of a bigger party, it certainly needs a Goebbels to propagate its voice and policy at the proper levels, at the proper pitch and tone. With old wine filling in the new bottles, there must be someone of the caliber and wisdom of Mr. Mahmood to justify the march of the party towards change. After all he is himself so discreet in changing postures.
I have been a passionate reader of Mr. Mahmood’s articles. His writing style is excellent. No other writeup coming from his pen has influenced me as much as his “We Punjabis”. The contents of that article may not be true about the Punjabis in general but they do apply in toto to the writer himself.
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