ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) on Friday rejected All Parties Conference’s (APC) allegations of pre-poll rigging in local body elections and challenged opposition lawmakers to act on their threats of resigning from assemblies.

Speaking at a news conference at the PML House here, the party’s information secretary and Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis, Senator Tariq Azim, contested the PPP Parliamentarians’ allegation that the government had nothing to do with the Swiss accounts case since it had been opened in 1997.

He said Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari were responsible for prolonging the finalization of the case with an idea of bargaining with the government.

The minister challenged the combined opposition to launch a mass movement against the government as they had been making plans.

The government, he said, was confident that the people would reject any movement launched to block the wheel of progress as the country had come out of bankruptcy.

Referring to the allegations of pre-poll rigging, Senator Azim said 97 per cent of the complaints lodged by the opposition had been proved fake in a suo moto action of the acting chief election commissioner.

He claimed that the people of Pakistan wanted development and progress, therefore, leaders and workers from other parties were joining the PML in a large number.

He refuted the allegation that the Punjab chief minister had recently announced Rs5 billion for the development of Rawalpindi. There was no room for announcing development funds during electioneering and if anyone had done it, notice would be taken immediately.

The minister said it had become a routine of the opposition to start making hue and cry of pre-poll rigging as soon as election schedule was announced and when elections were over, they would continue crying foul about results.

He said the allegation of transfers with the purpose of influencing elections was not true because the CEC had reverted such transfers in Sindh and the NWFP.

Tariq Azim termed the ‘troika’ of President General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain a ‘winning combination’.

Mr Azim said opposition’s allegation of abduction or blocking the way of its candidates from filing papers was baseless. They had not registered a single FIR anywhere, he added.

He said that if all candidates in Dera Bugti had turned unopposed, it spoke of the popularity of the Bugti’s party and no one should have any objection.

He said filing of references against the president, the prime minister and others would only be wastage of time.