LAHORE: The PML-N has accused the Imran Khan government of pressurising its leaders ahead of Gilgit-Baltistan polls to change loyalties and openly violating the code of conduct to influence the election there this month.

“We have strong reservations on the code of conduct violations and the use of the federal government’s machinery for the Nov 15 polls in Gilgit-Baltistan and want the Supreme Court Gilgit-Baltistan and the election commission to take notice of pre-poll rigging of the PTI government,” PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal told a press conference here on Thursday.

He alleged that at least nine leaders were forced by the federal government to change their loyalties. He said the prime minister election cell staff and federal minister Amin Gandapur visited every constituency in violation of the election code of conduct.

“During the last five-year tenure of PML-N there, exemplary law and order was maintained and the province progressed economically. Now the PTI government is bent upon winning the polls through rigging,” he said.

Mr Iqbal urged the judiciary to take notice of Imran Khan-led attack on PTV in 2014. He said Imran Khan was threatening the opposition like a ‘street goon’.

He stressed the need to make an action plan to curb terrorism like the Nawaz Sharif did after the APC tragedy.

He said [today] no country was standing with Pakistan on Kashmir only because of Imran Khan’s (failed foreign policy). He said Imran had made the country an ‘international beggar’ in the last two years and the government was busy awarding ‘certificates of traitors’ to its opponents.

Meanwhile, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz spoke to the party workers in Model Town and told them that time had come to get rid of this incompetent governemnt of Imran Khan that came to power through a ‘manipulated’ election.

She said the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s December rally in Lahore would prove to be a last nail in the coffin of the PTI government.

“There is a possibility that a long march on Islamabad may not be held as after the Lahore power show this selected government is sent packing,” she said and added that the narrative of Nawaz Sharif -- give respect to the ballot -- had reached every home.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2020