KARACHI, Aug 21: The Pakistan People’s Party on Sunday refused to accept results of the August 18 local body elections in Umerkot district, and demanded re-election in view of ‘rigging by the ruling party’.

The PPP’s view came at a news conference addressed Nawab Yousuf Talpur, the party’s MNA from the area, at the Karachi Press Club. He was accompanied by Mian Raza Rabbani, Deputy Secretary General of the PPP, and Jameel Soomro, media coordinator at the Bilawal House.

They listed a number of incidents where, they claimed, Awam Dost candidates had been subjected to victimization in the first phase of the elections.

Nawab Talpur told journalists that a white paper on the rigging in Umerkot would be published by his party soon. “Besides fixing ballot boxes, the Arbab government had resorted to abduction of candidates and harassment of their families and supporters,” he alleged.

According to him, there were incidents of theft of ballot papers by the ruling party’s supporters in Soomro polling station during the polling. The presiding officer concerned had himself lodged an FIR in this regard, but no action has so far been taken.

He said if the government thought that by such tactics it had broken the back of the PPP, then it was sadly mistaken. He repeated the PPP’s resolve not to leave the field open for the government-sponsored constellation.

The PPP leader said that the rigging, manipulations and violence during the first phase of LB elections had exposed the regime’s plan and its ability to maintain law and order.

Leader of the opposition in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said the incidents of violation of code of conduct and victimization of opposition candidates would be taken up in the Senate.

He said that the second phase of the LB elections would be important because the results had not yet been officially announced. He expressed concern over the delay in this regard, and alleged that ballot boxes were being stuffed even after the polling day. He regretted that the Election Commission was not taking notice of the rigging.

Mr Rabbani condemned the bomb blast on a railway track in Karachi, and said it was failure of the government in providing security to citizens. He also deplored the insulting behaviour of the government functionaries towards newspaper editors and working journalists who had been invited to the Governor’s House for prime minister’s news conference.