Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections: ML, JI enter into electoral alliance

The two parties to field joint candidate in Dheer Kot constituency.

MUZAFFARABAD:

The Muslim League and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) have entered into an electoral alliance for the June 26 elections for Azad kashmir Legislative Assembly. “The alliance with JI is on common agenda including stepping up of Kashmir liberation movement, exposing Indian repression and provision of good governance in AJK,” Muslim League AJK chief and former Prime Minuister Raja Farooq Haider Khan announced this at a news conference held at the Jamaat-i-Islami office on Thursday.

He said that an Islamic welfare society will be set up in AJK to provide even development and justice opportunities to the people of state, while resources will be developed to allow the region to be economically self-reliant.

Khan said that ML and JI would field joint candidates in Dheer Kot constituency against Prime Minister Attique Ahmed Khan. He urged the election commission to correct electoral rolls, extend the date for polls to July 9, a proposition rejected by the election commission on grounds that the EC staff will not be available after June 30.

Khan alleged that the federal government has not been projecting human rights violations in Indian held Kashmir and has not been fulfilling its responsibilities regarding Kashmir liberation movement.

“Pakistan has been a party to dispute and it had signed United Nations Resolution on Kashmir.

Being a member of the world body it must play its role and stop the killings of innocent civilians in Kashmir,” he said.

He alleged that the federal government has been planning to rig the June 26 elections and warned that the results will not be accepted if proven so.

He also alleged that the federal government plundered around Rs55 billion donated by international community for the earthquake survivors of AJK, leaving numerous reconstruction projects in jeopardy.

Speaking on the occasion Jamaat-i-Islami AJK chief Abdul Rasheed Turrabi said, “It is need of the hour that ideological parties come forward and make alliance to serve as harbingers for change at this crucial juncture of Pakistan’s history.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2011.