UPPER DIR, Aug 13: The district president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League has criticised the religious parties’ act of terming elections a war between believers and non-believers and said that elections were held simply to elect people’s representatives for public offices.

Mian Sultan Yousaf Bacha said: “Elections in Pakistan are just elections and not a war between … Muslims and infidels, as propagated by religious parties, who want to cheat simple people and win elections.

“Politics is not religion and it does not provide service to a select group of people. Instead, it is … (a method to offer) sincere services to one’s people and country,” he told a gathering in Nashnamal on Monday.

Hundreds of Jamaat-i-Islami workers announced that they had resigned from the party and joined the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, reposing confidence in its leaders. General-Secretary Sardaraz Khan, Abdullah Khan Advocate, Arif, Fazal Raziq, nazim Malik Muzaffar Khan and others spoke on the occasion.

He alleged that Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) had no development agenda but had cheated people by manipulating their religious sentiments.

He blamed the JI for the district’s backwardness and said that JI representatives had been winning elections from Dir for the past 45 years but they had kept the area under-developed.

He said that PML had been trying to achieve economic development and make the country’s defence invincible, adding that the PML government had earmarked Rs100 million for small development projects in Upper Dir even though it had no MNA or MPA from the district, demonstrating the PML’s resolve to work for the development of backward areas irrespective of political interest. According to the party, 611 people joined the PML on the occasion.