February 06, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 27, 1429

HYDERABAD, Feb 5: The leaders of the Jamshoro chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party on Tuesday demanded army deployment at all the polling stations to avoid a possibility of bloodshed on Feb 18.

If bloodshed did occur in their constituencies on the polling day, Pakistan Muslim League leader Liaquat Ali Jatoi, Sindh United Party leader Jalal Mehmood Shah, Election Commission and the administration would be responsible, said Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur, candidate for NA-231, Syed Murad Ali Shah, candidate for PS-73 and Dr Sikandar Shoro, candidate for PS-71 said at a joint news conference at the press club.

Syed Murad Ali Shah said: “We don’t want to win elections at the cost of human lives,” but at the same time the party would not allow anyone to steal the elections.

He failed to understand why the Election Commission and police were betting on dead horses and warned that if the government did not redress their complaints before elections, they would give a call for strike and block the roads.

The party was prepared to contest general elections on Jan 8 in the larger interest of democracy and the country but the government postponed them on flimsy grounds, he said.

Mr Shah alleged that the former federal minister had turned Dadu and Jamshoro districts into an inferno for PPP leaders and activists, who had been made the butt of police terror.

He claimed that Jamshoro was the strongest fort of PPP where the opponents would not be able to get even one per cent of total votes if the general elections were held in a free, fair, impartial and transparent manner.

He accused Jatoi was using the same old methods of rigging through appointment of police officers of his choice. The government officials in the two districts were acting like Jatoi’s personal servants, he alleged.

All the SHOs in Sehwan taluka had been transferred on one or the other pretext bur the lection commission did not take any action violation of its rules despite his written complaints, he said.

Mr Shah claimed that Jatoi was so unpopular that people raised “Jeay Bhutto” slogans wherever he went and he retaliated by implicating party supporters in false cases.

Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur claimed that police had been provided a list of 25 to 30 main party activists to be arrested before elections from each taluka.

He hailed the statement of the chief of the army staff about keeping away army from politics and urged him to also keep an eye on the activities of agencies. The administration was passing on the buck to agencies for the election malpractices, he said.

Dr. Sikandar Shoro complained that police were arresting the main party activists under bogus charges to keep them away from elections process. It was being done purposely to deprive PPP candidates of their polling agents, he said.

Meanwhile, an independent candidate for PS-23 Moro, Habibullah Korai, who is also an ADP member of Moro taluka council, accused his opponent Masroor Jatoi, former district nazim and son of former caretaker premier Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, of election malpractices.

He said at a separate news conference at the press club that Masroor Jatoi, had unleashed terror against his political opponents while Naushahro Feroze police were acting like his as performing the role of his steward.

He said that police were so busy giving protocol to Jatoi that they had not put in serious efforts for recovering the eight people who were kidnapped a few some weeks ago.

He demanded that PS-23 and NA-211 should be declared sensitive and army should be deployed in the constituencies on the polling day. The Election Commission should also take notice of election malpractices, he stressed.