ISLAMABAD: PPP has termed the government’s decision to appoint a federal minister as the governor of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) an instance of pre-poll rigging and warned PML-N against “its plan to rig the upcoming elections in the territory”.

Talking to reporters at his Parliament House chamber on Wednesday, senior PPP legislator and Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah said he had written a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to lodge a complaint about “pre-poll rigging” in the elections of the GB Council. The prime minister, he said, had not given any response.

Mr Shah said he was surprised at the “government’s move to rig” Gilgit-Baltistan polls despite the fact that it had still not come clean about allegations of rigging in the 2013 general elections.

Take a look: Controversy as new GB governor takes oath

He said it was regrettable that rulers had learnt no lesson from the history. He said PPP had serious reservations about the steps PML-N was taking in connection with the GB polls.

The PPP had supported the government when it was facing a grave political crisis created by sit-ins in Islamabad by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, he recalled. The opposition had acted as a “booster” when the government was in crisis, but rulers considered them an “antibiotic”, he said and advised Nawaz Sharif to “make friends, not enemies”.

Published in Dawn February 19th , 2015

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