PESHAWAR, Aug 23: Women lawmakers of the Jamaat-i-Islami have denied that their party was a signatory to any accord restraining women from casting votes in the first-phase of local bodies elections on August 18.

Speaking at a joint news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, MNA Inayat Begum, MPA Zubaida Khatoon and Bilquees Hussain, Nazima Jamaat-i-Islami, Peshawar, claimed that all the major political parties, including both factions of the Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan People’s Party, had signed an agreement against allowing women to cast their votes on Aug 18. They said that local representatives of these parties had signed the agreement after a meeting held at hotel Al-Imran in Dir.

Some NGOs and political parties, they said, did not know the ground realities and held the JI responsible for the anti-women campaign in the province.

They said the JI had nominated women candidates for all seats reserved for women and won most of them despite incidents of firing, scuffle and rigging by police force deployed at women polling booths in Nowshera.

The JI nazima Mrs Hussain alleged that a policeman was caught red-handed at a women polling booth in Dheri Katikhel when he was stamping ballot papers in favour of a PPP (Sherpao) nominee. She said that their rival parties, which had no political and economic agenda, had dubbed the JI as an anti-women organization and tried to give a bad name to Islam, but common people knew that the JI was a major political force and had a separate women’s wing.

Inayat Begum said that common citizen had opposed the policies of Gen Pervez Musharraf whose government had failed to provide relief to people from price-hike and unemployment. Corruption is widespread and the government was using state resources to win the elections, she alleged.

She said that at various women polling booths in Hayatabad, PPP (Sherpao) workers assaulted JI workers, snatched ballot boxes and misbehaved with the polling staff. Police were informed about the incidents but they did not turn up at the booths, she added.

She called upon the federal government to disqualify all candidates involved in such crimes, and said it would be a great service to the nation and society.

Gen Musharraf, she alleged, had advised the people at a public meeting in Swat not to vote for nominees of religious organizations but the election results were contrary to his wishes. MPA Zubaida Khatoon accused the Election Commission of Pakistan of Having failed to hold free, fair and transparent polls in the country.

She said that rival group had prepared a master plan to defeat the Al-Khidmat group and the Muttahida Majlis-Amal nominees across the province.