ISLAMABAD: Awami Workers Party (AWP) will be holding its first federal congress on September 27 and 28 in the capital to highlight problems being faced by people in the country.

AWP leaders said the congress would be taking place in an atmosphere where the ruling class was using revolutionary terminology to raise hopes of the downtrodden, but only to crush them again.

The AWP information secretary, Nisar Shah, while addressing a press conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday, said: `Left wing groups were a major force in the 1980sbut have suffered a decline following the end of the cold war.

`Absence of meaningful leftist politics at least partially explains our structural crises and the recent spread of populism of rightist parties under the garb of `revolution` and `azadi marches`,` he added.

He said the AWP had been formed with the objective of reviving leftist traditions and inducting a new cadre of youth and build socialist politics of the 21st century.

The congress will mark the end of the party`s first phase of organisation building, which started with the merger of three parties AwamiParty, Workers Party and Labour Party and formation of AWP in November 2012.

Others including AWP women secretary Farzana Bari, Rawalpindi/Islamabad president Chaudhry Masudul Hasan and the local chapter`s information secretary, Ammar Rashid, briefed media on preparations for the forthcoming federal congress.

Dr Farzana Bari said despite claims of progress by all mainstream parties over the past few years, the condition of the working classes, oppressed nationalities, women and religious minorities has been deplorable.A Reporter