LAHORE, July 11: The PPP alleged that polls for various AJK Legislative Assembly seats in Punjab were rigged, saying it deepened the party’s suspicions that free and fair elections could not be expected in the country under the present rulers.

At a news conference, PPP president Qasim Zia and information secretary Farzana Raja gave details of the alleged rigging.

Before the news conference, they inaugurated the PPP information office at party’s provincial secretariat in Faisal Town.

Ahmed Mukhtar, Zakariya Butt, Yousaf Awan, Malik Hafeezur Rehman, Azma Bukhari, Faiza Malik and Zahid Pervaiz were also present.

Alleging that the district nazims influenced the AJK elections in Punjab, Mr Zia claimed ballot-stuffing cases were reported from various places. A number of PPP workers were arrested to enable the government-backed candidates to win the polls, he said.

Ms Raja held the government responsible for the power crisis, and said it compelled people to take to streets. She said thousands of people had demonstrated to protest outages in Gujjar Khan, where the police were registering cases against them. She demanded withdrawal of all such cases, failing which, she warned of even stronger demonstrations.

The PPP leaders also expressed grief over the deaths in plane crash. A committee has been constituted under instructions from Ms Benazir Bhutto to visit all bereaved families and sympathise with them.

Farzana Raja, Yousaf Awan, Iqbal Sialvi and Hafeezur Rehman visited the residence of Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi and offered condolences over his death.