LAHORE: PPP Central Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo said on Monday party’s provincial leadership was in favour of boycotting the by-election in NA-122 because of a ‘blatant violation’ of the election code of conduct by the PML-N and PTI candidates but the PPP high command insisted on contesting the poll regardless of the result.

The PPP suffered a humiliating defeat in NA-122 and PP-147 as its candidates could bag around 800 and 700 votes.

In a statement, the Punjab PPP president said the ECP remained indifferent to PPP’s complaints regarding spending of billions of rupees by PTI and PML-N candidates on the election campaign.

“After the decision of the party top leadership, it launched a campaign only four days before the polling and the results are not to our expectations,” he said.

On elections in Okara, Mr Wattoo said farmers had given a loud and clear message to the PML-N government that their anti-farmers policies were not acceptable.

On the poor performance of PPP in by-election in Okara, he said the local chapter of the party was divided that led to division of its vote.

PPP Senator Aitzaz Ahsan tweeted: “After spending half of the country’s budget on one city, you still have to struggle to win a seat by a narrow margin there.”

Published in Dawn, October 13th , 2015

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