KARACHI, Sept 22: The acting secretary-general of the Pakistan People’s Party, Mian Raza Rabbani, has alleged that the military regime is using all means to block the way of the People’s Party Parliamentarians in the October elections in its attempt to support the candidates of the “King’s Party”.

Speaking at an election meeting of the PPP candidate for NA-250, Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, in Gizri on Saturday night, he castigated the government policies, which, he said, had rendered more people jobless, increased the cost of living and compelled many to commit suicide.

Mr Rabbani remarked that the government was not bothered about the common man, who was reeling under its anti-people policies.

He reiterated his party’s resolve to foil all alleged attempts of the government to rig the elections, and claimed that the people had seen through the game of pre-poll manipulations.

The PPP leader deplored the use of brute force against the party candidates and supporters in many parts of the country.

Provincial General-Secretary Rashid Rabbani said the military regime was worried about the party’s rising popularity graph.

Mirza Ikhtiar Baig said the PPP was a symbol of federation and would solve the economic problems of the people, check price-hike through better management and increase exports.

He emphasized that businessmen, industrialists and the working class bore equal responsibility in making the country prosperous.

Provincial assembly candidate Najmi Alam assured the people that if elected, the PPP would focus on solving the problems of water, electricity, roads, sanitation and health care.

Speaking at another meeting in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, the PPP general-secretary of the Karachi division, Habibuddin Junedi, claimed that about 700,000 people had been retrenched from government and private organizations while the prices of grain, ghee, oil and petroleum products had become unbearable.

National and provincial assemblies’ candidates, Shafi Mohammad Shah and Khwaja Bilal Azam, respectively, promised to address the problems of the people and vowed to defend the country’s honour and democratic dispensation.