LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will take solo flight in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) elections due in July and will not enter into an electoral alliance with any other political party.PPP AJK chapter president Sardar Latif Akbar told a press conference here on Friday.

He said the party was strong enough that it could contest the polls on its own as the notables belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) are joining it in large numbers there.

He said the price hike and unemployment caused by the PTI government’s policies have popularized the PPP among the Kashmiris and he pledged that his party won’t allow the PTI to repeat what it had done in the Gilgit-Baltistan elections by rigging the election results.

Mr Akbar strongly condemned Kashmir Committee Chairman Shehryar Afridi for declaring All-Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Gillani as an Indian agent. He said that those expressing such views were unaware of the history and freedom movement of Kashmir.

AJK chapter general secretary Dr Ahsan Iqbal said that the incumbent rulers were implementing the agenda of division of Kashmir but, he vowed, the Kashmiris living across the Line of Control would foil all such attempts.

He alleged that the PTI government has totally ignored the Kashmir cause and was doing nothing practical to solve the decades old dispute.

Punjab PPP senior vice-president Aslam Gill, Umer Shareef, Maulana Yousuf Awan and others were also present.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2021