ISLAMABAD, Aug 10: The victory of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz has been ensured in the August 18 by-elections in both the constituencies from which he is contesting.

This was stated by Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Attock Nazim Maj (retd) Tahir Sadiq and ruling party secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Syed while addressing a joint news conference at the PML House here on Tuesday.

The ruling party's election cell in-charge, Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani and MNA from Attock Malik Amin Aslam were also present. They said the candidates of the opposition parties may not be able even to provide sufficient number of polling agents to man all the polling stations, and that is perhaps the reason why they seem to be bent upon 'sabotaging' the polling process.

They did not agree with the suggestion that Shaukat Aziz lacking courage had been forced to interact with the 'elders' of the Attock constituency in the confines of his residence or the Punjab House.

Dr Rahim said, "the first round of electoral rallies have been completed at all places of the Tharparker constituency and I would personally be going to the area after August 14 to start door to door canvassing".

Responding to a question about his family's reported involvement in trafficking of women he said that the allegation was levelled by certain opposition groups and picked up by only one newspaper.

He alleged that the opposition after having failed to make its presence felt in the election campaign and anticipating a imminent defeat, has now announced that it would appoint MNAs and MPAs as polling agents to create tension and disrupt the process.

Referring to the letter written to him by the chief election commissioner based on the allegations of the opposition, the Sindh chief minister said, he had sent his reply to the CEC.

He expressed the fear that the opposition may try to sabotage the elections by various tactics but he said he was alert and would defeat all their tactics. He claimed that he had taken a lead of 53,000 votes in October 2002 elections while Shaukat Aziz would receive 90,000 votes if 100,000 were polled leaving only 10,000 for the opposition candidate.

Replying to a query he said although everything was under control, still he had asked the administration to be vigilant and treat all the 220 polling stations in the Tharparker constituency as sensitive so that the opposition could not sabotage the polling on any pretext.

He said there was a long list of influential people including former legislators who left the PPP and who have joined the official campaign and would vote for Mr Aziz. He dismissed as false all the allegations that the opposition was levelling to malign his government of trying to implicate it in some kind of self-perceived pre-poll rigging.

Dr Rahim said the prices of wheat had come down in the entire province as a result of various steps taken under the directive of prime minister and were not confined to Tharparker as was alleged.