DADU: In what appeared to be a show of strength, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sindh chapter held its workers’ convention in Dadu on Sunday.

The party’s Sindh president Ismail Rahu and its many candidates for local government seats spoke at the convention attended by party workers from various towns and villages of Dadu and Jamshoro districts.

Speaking to the audience, Mr Rahu said all political, religious and nationalist parties contesting the LG elections in Sindh had one common complaint that the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had actively been manoeuvring to rig the poll. “We have also received complaints from almost all PML-N-backed candidates about the unfair practices by returning officers,” he said, adding that the PPP had started pre-poll rigging by getting its stooges appointed as returning officers (ROs) and their subordinates.

He supported non-PPP contestants’ demand to remove all pro-PPP ROs and replace them with neutral officials to ensure credibility of the LG election process and results.

The PML-N leader severely criticised the PPP for its bad governance at the Centre and in Sindh over the past seven years and claimed that corruption touched its height during the period. The PPP looted the national exchequer and was still plundering the provincial kitty, he alleged

“They provided no relief to the general public, rather the problems faced by the common man only multiplied during the PPP rule,” he observed.

The PPP even failed to ensure provision of basic amenities to the people of Sindh and destroyed all departments by encouraging corruption and corrupt elements, he said. No development schemes promised by the Sindh government every year were executed and people were made to continue to suffer, he said.

Mr Rahu noted that unemployment had increased and graduate youths were committing suicides after being denied jobs despite attaining the required qualifications. He alleged that new tactics of corruption were introduced during the PPP rule.

Mr Rahu particularly criticised PPP lawmakers and their “hand-picked bureaucrats” for what he claimed using their influence on ROs and other election staff in getting the rival candidates nomination forms rejected by raising invalid objections.

“PPP MNAs and MPAs are not allowing their party’s rivals to contest the LG election because they are sure of their defeat,” he said.

Mr Rahu said that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had taken notice of the PPP’s modus operandi to ensure its victory and asked him to visit Dadu along with other party colleagues to look into such complaints. He said that PML-N workers’ LG elections-related complaints along with those pertaining to political victimisation would be presented to the party chief and the chief election commissioner.

PML-N MPA Sorath Thebo also spoke at the convention, and recalled that the people of Dadu and Jamshoro districts had also rendered great sacrifices during the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy and political parties’ various struggles against dictators. Howe­ver, she noted, the PPP grossly neglected them soon after coming to power.

She claimed that PML-N workers were subjected to political victimisation during the PPP rule over the country and Sindh. She accused senior officials of the Dadu district administration of actively supporting the PPP to ensure its candidates’ victory in the LG election. She appealed to the chief election commissioner to take notice of the “pre-poll rigging” and take remedial measures.

Published in Dawn, October 5th , 2015

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