LAHORE, Jan 11: The All Parties Democratic Movement will make another attempt to convince the parties contesting the Feb 18 polls to boycott the electoral exercise.

“The APDM has decided to form delegations at provincial level for reopening its contacts with the PPP, the PML-N, the JUI-F and the ANP for urging them to boycott the polls,” says alliance’s joint action committee chief Liaquat Baloch.

At a press conference here on Friday, he said if the parties contesting the polls did not demonstrate political acumen and astuteness, they would be used to prolong Musharraf regime through the “engineered” elections.

He told a questioner that the JUP, another constituent of the religious-party alliance called MMA, had announced boycott of the polls. He expressed doubts that the election could now be held on Feb 18.

Baloch said a detailed programme of the APDM campaign against the polls had been prepared. The APDM suspended its drive for an indefinite period after PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Dec 27.

The programme was later made public by Manzoor Gilani, another APDM leader, at a separate press conference here. According to it, the APDM will organise 13 public meetings and five seminars while its leaders will also address the Lahore High Court Bar Association.

The public meetings will be held in Loralai, Khuzdar, Hyderabad, Mardan and Abbotabad on Jan 22, 24, 26, 29 and 31, respectively. The rest of the eight public meetings will be held in Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta, Pindi and Lahore on Feb 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14 and 16, respectively.

While the seminars will be organised in Quetta (Jan 27), Peshawar (Jan 30), Lahore (Feb 6) and again in Peshawar (Feb 8).

The alliance has also proposed holding of a labour conference the schedule for which will be announced later.

To the astonishment of many reporters, APDM provincial convener Ahsan Rasheed said the alliance accommodated a request of the government while finalising its protest plan.

“The administration had requested exclusion of Muharram days from the APDM’s timetable for public meetings and seminars. We honoured the plea keeping in view the law and order situation prevailing in the country and the alliance would revive its mass-contact drive after Ashura (Muharram 10).”