HYDERABAD:
The Pakistan Peoples Party candidates for the two constituencies of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly seats have begun to canvass for votes in Sindh.
Sardar Maqsood Zaman, the PPP candidate for LA-30, said that the LA-36 Kashmir Valley I and LA-30 Jammu and others have 4,700 and 32,733 votes, respectively.
At a press conference on Wednesday, he said that his constituency has approximately 30,000 voters in Karachi alone out of 68,000 total voters. He was accompanied by a LA-36 candidate, Muhammad Iqbal Kashmiri, former state minister Shagufta Jumani, and provincial minister Zahid Bhurgari.
Elections to these constituencies were rescheduled over security fears but they will now be held on July 20.
Zaman said that the PPP is "certain" to win the elections for the two seats. "With these two seats we will be able to form our government in the AJK," he said. The PPP has clinched 19 seats in the AJK assembly but it needs to win two more to form the government.
Kashmiri said that the PPP government will address education, employment and housing - problems that the Kashmiri diaspora faces. These areas were neglected by the past governments.
"The PPP government will provide housing, employment in the provincial and federal governments, road transport services from Karachi and Quetta, international and national scholarships for students and an increased enrolment quota for students in medical and engineering universities as well as law colleges," he announced. Kashmiri's constituency has 550 voters in Hyderabad.
"The sweeping PPP success in the elections and the general mood of Kashmiris is indicative of the party's popularity and the hopes people have attached with the party," said Kashmiri.
To a question, he responded that his party's leader has proclaimed a 1,000-year war for Kashmiri rights, hence assuring that their right to self-determination will be pursued vigorously by the new AJK assembly. MNA Shagufta Jumani rebuffed the rigging allegations by asking how the Pakistan Muslim League-N could accuse the PPP of rigging elections which were held under the PML-N's administrative control.
She said that her party was "a reality which exists in all parts and provinces of the country unlike other parties."
Twelve seats of the AJK Legislative Assembly have immigrant Kashmiri voters while nine of them are in Punjab alone. Earlier on, the two candidates held corner meetings and met local leaders of the PPP.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 7th, 2011.
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