AJK elections: PPP, PML-N battle it out as campaign heats up

Hamza Sharif claims Pakistan Peoples Party plans to cheat in the upcoming polls.


Roshan Mughal June 23, 2011

MUZAFFARABAD:


As the elections draw near in the self-governing state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) appear to be on a collision course. Both parties have been issuing aggressive statements against each other with impunity.


PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif said the nation wants to see Benazir Bhutto’s murderers exposed because the entire world knows who killed her.

Addressing a PML-N candidates’ election rally in Chinari, 50 kilometres south of Muzaffarabad, he once again took a shot at President Asif Ali Zardari, holding him responsible for the deterioration of law and order and the ongoing energy crisis in the country.

“Asif Zardari has made the country a safe haven for corruption by reining all the institutions and Inshallah [if God is willing] we will pull the country out of the difficulties created by them,” he said.

Sharif, who has been on a whirlwind visit of AJK to campaign for his new-found PML-N candidates, announced that a motorway will be built from Kohala to Chakothi and a medical college will be set up if the PML N is elected to power in AJK.

Convener PML-N AJK Farooq Haider also addressed the rally.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, while addressing an election campaign rally of PPP candidates in Bagh on Wednesday, said: “We are aware of the pain and sorrow of the people across the border, and the PPP government will continue its moral, political and diplomatic support for their freedom.”

He said the PPP governments in the past focused on the projection of the Kashmir dispute at world forums and paid special attention towards the uplifting of remote areas of AJK too.

He claimed it was the PPP that gave the interim Constitution and the Supreme Court to AJK in 1974 and fixed a two per cent job quota for Kashmiris in federal departments.

He promised that AJK would be made prosperous and be developed by launching social welfare schemes such as the Benazir Income Support Programme, among other supporting programmes.

Cautious of the code of ethics set by the AJK election commission, Gilani said he would not announce a development scheme at the moment but promised to return after the elections.

Former minister water and power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and former premier AJK Barrister Sultan also addressed the gathering.

In an interesting turn of events, a ban has been imposed on carrying weapons in Azad Kashmir, as elections draw near.

Addressing a high-level security meeting on AJK elections in the interior ministry, Rehman Malik said 19,000 security personnel have been requested for deployment in AJK, 10,000 of whom will serve for the AJK elections.

Rangers’ and FC personnel will be deployed at sensitive polling stations, he said.

Meanwhile, talking to the media outside the Punjab Assembly in Lahore, Punjab Law Minsiter Rana Sanaullah said the upcoming general elections will be between anti and pro-establishment parties.

Sanaullah said President Zardari’s address in Naudero was not that of a head of state but of a political activist.

On a similar note, while addressing the inauguration of AJK election candidate Ghulam Abbas Mir’s office in Lahore, PML-N leader Hamza Shahbaz Sharif claimed that the PPP has plans to cheat in the AJK elections.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM EXPRESS 24/7)

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23rd,  2011.

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