KARACHI, Jan 1: The Central Executive Committee and Federal Council of the Pakistan People’s Party will meet at the Bhutto House in Naudero on Wednesday afternoon to discuss issues relating to the coming election.

Announcing this here on Tuesday, PPP’s central information secretary Sherry Rehman demanded that the elections must be held on schedule.

On Monday, the party’s co-chairman Asif Zardari had declared that his party would not accept a postponement of the polls ‘on any pretext’.

Sherry Rehman referred Mr Zardari’s statement that while the PPP was going for the elections despite being in a state of shock to save the federation, undemocratic forces had started hunting down PPP workers to create a chaotic situation in order to run away from the elections.

Wednesday’s meeting would be followed by consultations with other parties in case the elections were deferred for long, Ms Rehman said, adding that the PPP would not let the regime run away from the polls.

Meanwhile, Mr Zardari has blamed the government’s allies and instruments for the violence taking place in the country.

Mr Zardari pointed out that members and workers of the PPP, after their initial shock and mourning were preparing for the elections to fulfil the mission for which Benazir Bhutto had laid down her life.

He said the PML-N and PPP had both decided to participate in the elections, like other democratic parties.

“The regime should stop perpetrating violence and its scheme to wriggle out of the elections, Mr Zardari added.

Ms Rehman said that since Ms Bhutto’s assassination on Thursday, the regime had been slowly retracting from its pledge to hold the elections on January 8, “come what may”.

There was a general consensus that after the tragic events of Dec 27, PML-Q’s popularity had hit rock bottom and postponement of the elections was aimed at buying time to come up with means to rig polls to turn the results in its favour.

She said there were reports that the regime and the PML-Q were planning to resort to the “dirty” tactics of maligning the PPP leadership in the intervening period.

A delay in the polls, she added, would also give more space to extremist and terrorist elements to plunge the country into a ‘dangerous whirlpool of disaster’.

“Over 100,000 PPP workers had been picked up on false charges by the regime in order to harass the party into submission,” she said, adding that there was absolutely no excuse for locking up innocent polling agents and workers, and the regime was instigating violence to delay the polls.

“When the party that has lost its leader and is in mourning is itself demanding that the polls be held on time, then what business does the regime have to delay polls? The excuse of burnt electoral rolls is a flimsy one as all rolls are in electronic form as well and can be replaced in hours,” she said.

“Delaying polls is just an excuse for the caretaker regime to buy time to invent other means to send the PML-Q back to power. We will not accept that. This whole exercise is to protect the king’s party, whose graph is plummeting, and to prevent the PPP from sweeping the polls.

We will not settle for a delay and we demand that all our workers booked on false charges all over Sindh be released.”