HYDERABAD, Feb 7: Sindh Minister for Irrigation Nadir Akmal Leghari, who is also general secretary of the Sindh Pakistan Muslim League, has defended participation of the chief minister and provincial ministers in the election campaign of the PML candidate for PS-71 Kotri and said it does not violate the Election Commission's code of conduct.

He was talking to media persons at the residence of Hyderabad Press Club president Shahid Sheikh in Latifabad on Wednesday after condoling with him on the death of his sister.

Mr Leghari was accompanied by Pir Zaman Shah Jilani, special assistant to Sindh chief minister, MPA Sajila Leghari and Afshan Imran, Sindh PML women wing president. Mr Leghari had come to Kotri to attend a by-election meeting of PML candidate Pir Mujeeb Jilani.

“Yes, it is 100 per cent in accordance with the Election Commission's code of conduct because we are not giving any undue advantage to our candidate and it cannot be considered the use of state machinery”, he said when asked whether participation of the chief minister and ministers in the election campaign of the PML candidate met criteria of the code of conduct.

He said that the ministers were visiting the constituency in their personal capacity reports and rejected the reports that the ministers were using state machinery. “Like opposition, we have the right to seek votes for our candidate.”

He said that they were hopeful that their candidate would emerge victorious in the by-election and added that development works would be carried out in Kotri. He said that opposition had decided to raise hue and cry about rigging despite the fact that they had recently won a by-elections in Shikarpur. He said that every political party had a right to mould opinion of the people in its favour for seeking vote.