LARKANA, Aug 31: Sindh National Front leader Amir Bakhsh Bhutto has offered support to the People’s Party Parliamentarians and other political parties for forming local government in the district.

Talking to journalists here on Tuesday, he said nazim’s post was less important for the SNF than Sindh’s rights.

“If the PPP leads in raising the voice for Sindh’s rights, the SNF will feel no hesitation in following it and even if the government comes forward to serve the same objective the SNF will open talks with it,” he said.

He said that so far no one from the PPP had contacted the SNF despite reports to that effect appearing in the Press.

Mr Bhutto described the local body polls as a ‘hollow exercise’ and said riggings in the elections had broken all previous records.

He alleged that results of the Bahman union council were changed by the returning officer.

He said the official turned down the request of the candidate for recount and advised him to go to the election tribunal.

He said police and Rangers in Shato Mangi union council threw out polling agents of the SNF candidate and stuffed ballot box with bogus votes.

He said results of the UC-1 of the Ratodero taluka were also changed from where an SNF candidate had emerged victorious but latter he was defeated technically.

He said billions of rupees were spent on the election only to get engineered results and added in the same breath that the government could not fool the world about the election’s credibility.

He said the Sindh chief minister was directly involved in rigging and his instructions for securing “desired results” had inflicted a defeat on the SNF.

“Had there been no involvement of Arbab Rahim, the SNF would have swept polls in eight union councils in Ratodero taluka”, Mr Bhutto claimed.

He said novel methods of rigging instructed by the chief minister to officials would have serious repercussions.

He said instead of holding such polls, the government should had nominated its favourite candidates without election.

“People have been deceived through ballot as pro-government feudal lords changed results”, he said.

He said the independent election commission was no solution to the problem because any government could get desired results through rigging.