KARACHI: PPP candidate insists on polling under army
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Feb 4: The PPP candidate for NA-250 by-election Nafees Ahmed Siddiqui has said that he had demand polling under the army’s supervision because be believes the country’s armed forces will not allow any party or group to indulge in rigging or disturb peace on the polling day.
Addressing an election meeting at Pakistan Chowk on Sunday, he reiterated his demand of the deployment of armed forces across the constituency on Feb 10, and said those who had described the deployment as undemocratic did not want army to remain present during the polling. They had rigged elections in the past and fear that in the presence of army this time, they might not succeed in rigging the poll,” he alleged.
He hoped that the policymaking institutions of the country would find ways to curb the trend of rigging to make every election in the country credible.
He said his party was striving hard for the restoration of a genuine democracy in the country in collaboration with all democratic forces.
Other PPP leaders, including Rashid Rabbani and Najmi Alam, also spoke on the occasion.
Addressing another public meeting held in Punjab Colony, Nafees Siddiqui claimed that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had failed to drum up any remarkable support in this constituency despite having spent millions of rupees and put in all government resources.
LEADERS MEET: PPP leaders held a consultation meeting with opinion leaders from different walks of life and observed that many social organisations, NGOs, trade bodies and women organisation had come out with support to Mr Nafees Siddiqui as the consensus candidate of Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) in the by-election for NA-250 seat of the National Assembly.
Leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro presided over the meeting, held here the other day, said a PPP release.
According to the release, the meeting was attended by Prof Jamal Naqvi, Muqtada Mansoor, Gul-e-Rana Naqvi, Asad Iqbal, Khwaja Mohammad Awan, Shamshad Qureshi, Kamran Chaudhry, Manzoor Razi, Muzaffar Ali, Saeed Ghani and Latif Mughal.
Mr Khuhro, who is in charge of Mr Siddiqui’s election campaign, said that the PPP was ready to launch another struggle for the restoration of true democracy.
He reiterated his party’s pledge that the ‘black law’ IRO-2002 would be revoked and labour-friendly laws introduced when PPP would be voted to power.
He condemned the atrocities being meted out to the people of Balochistan, and said that the PPP would continue to raise its voice against the operation at all forums.
