Poll postponement: MQM challenges decision in court

AJK High Court sets June 30 for hearing into the petition; rigging claims accompanied by veiled threats.

MUZAFFARABAD:

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) challenged the postponement of legislative assembly elections on three Kashmir refugee seats in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court on Tuesday.

The court set June 30 for the preliminary hearing of the petition filed by the MQM’s parliamentary leader in AJK Legislative Assembly, Tahir Khokhar, through his counsel Sharafat Ali.

The court directed the state’s election commission to respond on Thursday.

The petitioner requested the court to issue an order for the immediate holding of elections on the two seats in Karachi along with another in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Meanwhile, senior leaders of the People’s Party (PP) AJK chapter, the Muslim Conference (MC) and Muslim League-N (ML-N) held separate press conferences in Muzzafarabad, accusing each other of election rigging.

During a press conference, PP leader Qamaruz Zaman Khan urged the MC and ML-N to accept the results and called the elections “fair” and “transparent”. He suggested that anyone with complaints about rigging should go to the election commission and file an application for repolling at the polling stations in question.

Public Health Engineering Minister Ghulam Murtaza Gilani, who lost the election from LA-25 Muzzafarabad-2, claimed that the PP candidate, Bazal Naqvi, used ‘criminals’, he had brought from outside the state.

In response, Naqvi accused Gilani of misusing government resources and money in the election.

Chaudhry Shahzad, who was contesting as an independent candidate from the same constituency, led a protest demonstration on Tuesday against the alleged rigging by the PP candidate. Hundreds of people took part in the protest, which started from Upper Adda and concluded in front of the Muzzafarabad Press Club.

Protesters were chanting slogans against the alleged rigging and were demanding re-polling in the constituency. They threatened to siege the office of the chief election commissioner if action was not taken against the
PP candidate.

Senior ML-N leader Shah Ghulam Qadir, who lost the election from Neelum valley, also alleged the use of state resources against him. In a statement, he alleged that the Benazir Income Support Programme was used by the PP candidate against him.

Food Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi also alleged rigging in LA-17 Poonch/Sudhnoti, where one person was killed on Tuesday in post-election violence.

For now, the election commission has announced repolling in three constituencies.

According to the schedule issued by the election commission, repolling for LA-17 Poonch/Sudhnoti will be held on July 18, LA-6 Bhimber-2 on July 11, and LA-37 Valley-2/Lahore on July 10.

Elections in these constituencies were cancelled on the reports of returning officers.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2011.