PESHAWAR: Rulers not serious about fair polls, says PPP
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Oct 26: Rulers are responsible for the growing lawlessness and violence across the country because they are not serious about holding free, fair and transparent elections, according to the Pakistan People’s Party.
Addressing a news conference here at the press club on Friday, PPP’s provincial chief Rahimdad Khan said rulers were terrorising everyone, adding that genuine political forces were being harassed through stage-managed violent incidents.
He said because the PPP was a popular party, it would not give in to coercive measures of corrupt rulers.
The press conference was held to mark former nazim of Kohat Malik Mohammad Asad Khan’s move of joining the PPP.
The PPP leader hoped that his party would emerge as the main political force in Kohat after Malik Asad’s act of joining it, enabling it to win a maximum number of seats in the general elections. He praised Malik Asad for having served masses honestly across the district.
Criticising the ruling coalition for using abusive language against the People’s Party and its leadership, he said that some federal ministers, two chief ministers and the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League had been using vitriolic language against PPP leadership since the day scores of innocent PPP workers were killed in Karachi.
Stressing the need for national reconciliation, he said it was the only way to save the country’s integrity and unity of the political forces, otherwise Pakistan was rapidly approaching towards an unmanageable crisis. He said the inflexible attitude of minions of the powers that be would only unleash people’s wrath in an already polarised society.
He said: “It is our honest approach towards national issues, if someone considers it PPP’s weakness he is living in a fool’s paradise.” PPP, being mainstream political force, considered maintenance of law and order its prime responsibility, so that rulers could not use it (lawlessness) as a pretext to postpone elections.
He said the anti-people gang, which worked as minions of military dictators, was opposed to the PPP’s new political stand of national consensus. The very same mafia, he said, had dubbed it a political deal with a military dictator. He said that the PPP had always opposed political victimisation and tried to take along all political forces.
Condemning the Mingora suicide attack, Mr Khan termed it an outcome of the government’s wrong policies. He accused the government of not having taken any step to improve the law order situation after the emergence of a parallel government in the Swat valley.
Criticising the caretaker provincial government for diverting people’s attention from real causes of violence by issuing statement about improving the Sharia system in the violence-hit region, he said: “We are Muslims. People of Malakand division badly need restoration of peace in their area, but the government has opted to exploit the people’s religious sentiments.”
Former PPP provincial president Masood Kausar and Fareed Khan Toofan also addressed the meeting.
