ISLAMABAD, Sept 30: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) General Secretary Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has accused the government of resorting to worst type of “political victimization” and pre- poll rigging in the forthcoming third phase of the local government elections.
Speaking at a news conference along with party’s information secretary Siddiqul Farooque and president of the party’s Islamabad chapter Dr Tariq Chaudhry here on Friday, the PML-N leader alleged that the government had broken even the records of rigging which it had done in the first two phases of the polls.
He claimed that 100 councillors from various union councils in Multan were kidnapped and kept in Murree. He said these councillors had been picked up from the Mumtazabad area of Multan where son-in-law of jailed ARD president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi was contesting the elections.
The PML-N leader said he had got the reports that so far a majority of these councillors had refused to support the government-backed candidate and had even refused to accept huge “bribe money”.
Mr Jhagra said councillors were being sold and purchased like sheep and goats. He said he had reports that the price of a vote had been fixed at Rs200,000 by a councillor in Peshawar.
He said the government had been using all kind of tactics in an effort to pressurize the opposition candidates. He said even those in the ruling party, who had announced that they would contest the elections against the ‘official’ candidates were being victimized. He said the example of Gen (retired) Abdul Majeed Malik in Chakwal was an eye-opener for the whole nation.
Mr Jhagra said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had issued special cards to the elected councillors which they had to show at the time of polling on October 6. He alleged that these cards had been issued by the ECP on the directives of the government which had devised a special plan to rig the polls.
Mr Jhagra, who is also the secretary-general of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), said the cards, which had been issued to the women councillors, did not have their photographs on them. He feared that the government would take advantage of this situation and there was a possibility of bogus voting on the election day.
He said he had written a letter to the acting chief election commissioner (CEC), Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, apprising him of the opposition parties’ apprehensions about the issue. He asked the CEC either to issue new cards to the women councillors with their photographs or make it compulsory for them to also produce their national computerized identity cards at the time of polling.
In his letter to the CEC, Mr Jhagra said: “There were widespread complaints from genuine voters during the first two phases of the LG elections that their votes had already been polled by others in favour of government-supported candidates.”
“I have come to know that this time again duplicates of the special computerized cards for women voters are being obtained by the ruling party and government functionaries. They will use them to cast votes in favour of the government-supported candidates before genuine voters appear at the polling stations and the polling officers will not be able to verify identity without photographs,” he said.