The Pakistan People’s Party on Wednesday joined the Awami National Party in demanding re-polling in constituencies which were marred by rigging and malpractices during the recent local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and sought Chief Minister Pervez Khattak’s immediate resignation.
In a statement released on Wednesday, PPP Secretary General Raja Pervez Ashraf criticised the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for its duplicity in the recent polls and that the claims of good governance, transparency and fair elections of the PTI leaders had been thoroughly exposed.
“The party [PTI] that kept the nation on tenterhooks for six months and unabashedly attacked and de-sanctified the Parliament House in Islamabad for rigging in 2013 elections has itself resorted to worst kind of gerrymandering and fraud in the LB polls in the province.”
Ashraf said that the PPP rejected Khattak’s and Imran Khan’s claim that the Election Commission, and not the provincial government, was responsible for electoral fraud and violence on polling day which left over a dozen people dead. He added that while the ECP was responsible for conducing elections, deficiencies in which the poll body already had a lot of explaining to do, but the responsibility for maintaining law and order and protecting the life and property of citizens was squarely the responsibility of the provincial government.
Ashraf pointed out how PTI chief Imran Khan had held the then provincial chief minister Punjab responsible for electoral fraud and malpractices in the 2013 general elections, but when it came to the local government polls in KP he was holding the ECP responsible.
