MUZAFFARABAD: Vowing to take all possible steps for the supremacy of Constitution, law and democracy in the liberated territory, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) cabinet on Monday warned that people would not tolerate any attempt or conspiracy to put the upcoming AJK polls on hold.

A meeting of the cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider maintained that the AJK Election Commission was completely empowered to conduct elections in the state “timely, impartially and justly” and the AJK government would extend fullest cooperation to it in this regard.

On Sunday night, PM Haider had taken to Twitter to find faults with a largely unreported statement of Prime Minister Imran Khan about AJK polls at his party’s core committee meeting earlier in the day.

Cabinet says Israeli and Indian prime ministers are shamelessly imitating each other

“I’ve serious reservations about PMIK’s sweeping assertion on the upcoming AJK polls. He should avoid saying, let alone doing, anything as could compromise [the] Central Govt’s neutrality in this sensitive region’s election process. We’ll however issue a specific response after tomorrow’s cabinet meeting,” Mr Haider had tweeted.

Without naming anyone, the AJK cabinet at its lengthy meeting warned the elements “aspiring for unlawful and unconstitutional tactics to put off or influence elections” that AJK was a highly sensitive region and any attempt to meddle in the electoral process would be detrimental to national interests.

“People of the state of Jammu and Kashmir feel deep affection for Pakistan and hold all of its constitutional and legal institutions in high esteem. However, any unconstitutional and unlawful interference on the part of these institutions would be disastrous,” the cabinet observed.

“Therefore they should carry out political activities within the bounds of their constitutional and legal limitations and spare their new experiments for the next general elections in Pakistan,” it added.

Among other things, the cabinet expressed complete solidarity with the Palestinian people and strongly condemned Israeli aggression against them.

It called upon the United Nations Security Council, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and international human rights organisations to play their role without further loss of time in stopping genocide of the innocent Palestinian people and their forced eviction and demographic changes in their native areas.

The cabinet also condemned the reign of terror let loose by the Indian government to suppress the indigenous freedom movement in occupied Kashmir and demanded the UN and international community to take immediate steps for holding a plebiscite in the disputed Himalayan region.

The Israeli and Indian prime ministers are two sides of the same coin and had been shamelessly imitating each other in their occupied territories, the AJK cabinet said.

It expressed satisfaction over the five-year rule of the PML-N government in AJK under the stewardship of PM Haider “in accordance with the vision of Mian Nawaz Sharif”.

It claimed that the PML-N would return with a majority in the forthcoming elections “on the basis of its performance to carry on its mission of serving the masses”.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2021