PTI leader expresses concern over release of development funds before elections

Dr Arif Alvi terms distribution of Rs54 billion among MNAs pre-poll rigging

KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan take notice of the release of development funds to lawmakers in Sindh before the upcoming general elections.

PTI Sindh President Dr Arif Alvi condemned the distribution of Rs54 billion among the MNAs of Sindh, terming it as an act of pre-poll rigging while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday.

Dr Alvi also criticised the Sindh government for harassing and victimising workers and supporters of the PTI in different districts of Sindh. He alleged that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government of Sindh was pressurising the PTI workers to abandon their support for the party.

"One of our workers was being tried in an anti-terrorism court by the government," the lawmaker from Karachi remarked, adding that he died yesterday in police custody as a result of torture.



"The government is conspiring to weaken the PTI in Sindh by harassing its workers," Dr Alvi alleged. He added that the government would not succeed in doing so.

The PTI leader also commented on the sugar cane crisis in Sindh. Despite the orders of the Sindh High Court, the owners of sugar mills are not buying sugar cane from the growers, he said. Dr Alvi accused PPP Co-Chairperson Asif Ali Zardari of playing a vital role in sustaining corruption in Sindh.

The PTI gathering in Larkana will shake the PPP leadership and Sindh government, the MNA claimed. "In the upcoming elections, people of rural and urban Sindh would dump the PPP in trash as its leaders have looted Sindh," he said.

PTI leader from Umerkot district Nawab Zaid Talpur, who was once booked for manhandling a policeman, accompanied Dr Alvi at the press conference. "I was nominated in fake cases for raising voice against the oppression of people by the government," Talpur claimed.