Sharjeel says AJK polls to be remembered as 'Form 47 Plus'

Accuses PML-N of securing a 'charitable mandate', says PPP rejects manipulation of public vote

KARACHI:

Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon has sharply criticised PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz over their statements on the Azad Jammu and Kashmir election results, accusing the ruling party of once again securing a mandate through what he called historic rigging.

Memon said the AJK election results would go down in history as "Form 47 Plus", alleging that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had obtained a "charitable mandate" through electoral manipulation.

He said the public had rejected the PML-N in 2024 and had delivered its verdict again in 2026. "A government can be formed through a fake mandate, but popularity and genuine public support cannot be achieved through it," he said.

Reacting to Nawaz Sharif's reported remarks that he had not expected the Pakistan Peoples Party to give him an opportunity to complain, Memon called the statement unfortunate. He said Nawaz should first examine how the political circumstances in AJK had developed before expressing grievances against the PPP.

Memon said the PPP had always respected democratic principles, the public mandate and political tolerance. If questions arose over irregularities in an election, he said, raising a voice against them was the party's democratic right. The senior minister stressed that the PPP neither wanted hostility with any political party nor had it ever pursued such a policy. Political differences, he said, should not be turned into enmity.

However, he added that manipulation in the name of democracy or attempts to undermine the public mandate could not be accepted. "We have no problem with political opposition; the problem arises when power is used to weaken the public mandate," he said.

Memon rejected Maryam Nawaz's comparison between the elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK, saying the two electoral situations could not be equated.