ISLAMABAD, July 24: Reacting sharply to the Supreme Court’s decision to advance the date of the presidential election, the PPP indicated on Wednesday that it might boycott the polls in protest.

Addressing a news conference hours after the SC ordered the Election Commission to hold the election on July 30 instead of Aug 6, senior PPP leaders alleged that the move was aimed at depriving the opposition of adequate time to run its election campaign.

The harshest criticism of the SC decision came from Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan who had been in the forefront of the historic movement for the reinstatement of the deposed judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, during the previous military rule of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

“We strongly protest over the verdict. We are consulting our allies whether we should participate or not in the presidential election for which the government, the court and the Election Commission have joined hands,” he said.

He said the verdict had been announced merely on the application of a PML-N office-bearer, without hearing the parties concerned, including the candidates, and without issuing notices to anyone.

He said the SC decision did not have any constitutional footing because the date for the presidential election could be changed only if the National Assembly was dissolved.

Mr Ahsan alleged that the PPP was being kept out of the whole process and the outcome of May 11 general elections was also a result of an alliance of all the state institutions. He said the PPP had no intention to file a review petition because in its opinion it would be of no use.

He said the decision had hampered the election campaign of Raza Rabbani, the PPP candidate for the post of president, and he would not be able to contact members of all the four provincial assemblies to seek their support.

“The court has not got even passing marks in the today’s examination,” he said, adding that the judgment had created “many doubts” in the minds of the people and strengthened a perception that the judiciary always acted fast on PML-N’s requests. In the past, he said, the SC had dismissed two chairmen of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the requests of the then opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

“We would now like to see whether the present opposition leader Khurshid Shah is also given the same veto power on the issue of appointment of the NAB chairman.”

The PPP leader expressed surprise over the SC’s act of changing the election schedule on its own instead of asking the ECP to do so. “The SC asks every entity to operate within (assigned) area. I wish the SC had done so itself,” he said.

Mr Rabbani said it would be impossible for him to visit the four provincial capitals for his campaign during the period shortened by the CS decision.

He said the government’s candidate could visit the provinces by using the official aircraft of the prime minister, but being an opposition candidate he did not have any resources to match the campaign of his rival.

The Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khurshid Shah, said it appeared that the government had panicked after seeing the active campaign that the PPP had launched for Mr Rabbani on Tuesday when a delegation of the party met the leaders of four parties in one day.

PPP president Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Presidential Spokesman Farhatullah Babar, former information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and Senator Saeed Ghani were also present on the occasion.

Later in the evening, some senior PPP members gathered at the residence of Syed Khurshid Shah for an informal meeting to discuss their future strategy on the matter.

Sources said the party leaders decided to meet the representatives of the ANP and the other parties, which had announced their support for Mr Rabbani, on Thursday to seek their opinion regarding the option of boycotting the polls. The sources said the PPP was itself divided over the issue.

Meanwhile, the sources said federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday talked to Mr Shah by telephone to seek support for his party’s candidate and to discuss the situation after the SC decision.