PML-N insists electoral rolls are being manipulated

Party officials also repeat their demands to take up talks with Taliban.

KARACHI: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) repeated its earlier stance that manipulation in electoral rolls has deprived over three million people in Karachi of their voting rights.

The party’s senior leader, Saleem Zia, explained how the manipulation took place on Monday. “These are people who are not being allowed to vote here because their permanent residential addresses state that they are not from Karachi,” he said, referring to voters who forefathers moved to the city decades ago.

As the Supreme Court takes up the case voter verification case on February 13 in Islamabad, the PML-N leaders will argue that people should be allowed to vote from where they were residing presently, he said. “There are many distortions in the voters list and we won’t accept them until all the errors have been removed.”

Talk to Taliban

The PML-N also reiterated its support for holding peace talks with Taliban, who offered conditional dialogues with the government earlier this month. PML-N secretary general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra said it would be naive on part of political parties to avoid negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban to bring lasting peace in the troubled region.



“We have said it before and are saying it now that dialogue is the only solution to this problem,” he said at a press conference. “This in no way means that we support the terrorists. But use of force will not give us any results either.”

PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has already backed the idea of holding talks with Pakistani Taliban to defuse tensions prevailing in the northern parts of the country. Only a few days ago, he announced support for Awami National Party’s effort to mobilise different political parties to discuss the issue of terrorism.

The statement from PML-N comes at a time when Interior Minister Rehman Malik has called upon politicians to take a stand on the matter. Jhagra foresees decline in insurgency when foreign troops start pulling out of Afghanistan. “I am telling you, we’ll see a 50 per cent reduction in acts of terrorism when the US leaves.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2013.