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PPP warns against manipulation in Jhang by-polls
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LAHORE: PPP Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo has said that the reports of intimidation and harassment by the Punjab government in PP-81 Jhang are condemnable.
In a statement issued on Sunday from the party secretariat, he added that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should take immediate notice of these reports. He observed that the present Punjab government mandarins were notorious for using illegal and unethical tactics in the electoral process without compunction in order to get to the corridor of power.
He recalled that almost all the political parties expressed their serious reservations over the elections results of May 2013 elections, but former president Asif Ali Zardari accepted the results only for the sake of the supreme cause of the continuity of the political process. “This allowance cannot be given to them anymore for the same reason,” he maintained.
Wattoo opined that if the PPP had joined hands with other political forces to bring the people to the streets to protest “rigging” in the May 2013 elections the country would have been pushed into chaos and instability, which would be detrimental to the democratic dispensation.
He cautioned that the “political maturity and equanimity of PPP” should not be deemed by the rulers of Punjab as a weakness.
“The rest of the political leadership does not want to create roadblocks in the way of the government in the face of terrorism and extremism,” Wattoo said. He asked the Punjab government to desist from petty tactics in the Jhang by-elections, saying manipulation of the mandate of the people would not be tolerated.
“The party would join hands with other political forces to formulate a befitting strategy if ballot boxes are stuffed with the connivance of the administration,” the PPP leader warned.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk