PESHAWAR: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Tuesday demanded re-election of local governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under a caretaker setup and asked for resignation of provincial government.

He said that opposition was ready for re-election of local governments under a caretaker setup in the province as the present provincial government was responsible for massive rigging in the last month’s polls.

Read: Tripartite alliance announces shutter-down strike across KP

“We want re-election but not under the supervision of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government as it would repeat the same practice which it carried out during the May 30 elections by massively rigging it,” said Maulana Fazlur Rehman while addressing a protest public meeting of the alliance of JUI-F, ANP and PPP here at Khyber Bazzar.

“When Imran Khan and Pervez Khattak had publicly admitted that rigging took place in the polls then morally it was binding on them to quit the government,” he said. He blamed Imran Khan for supporting anti-Islamic forces and alleged that he was an agent of Jewish lobby and had been safeguarding their interests.

Asfandyar says accepting re-election under the present govt will be a political suicide

ANP central president Asfandyar Wali Khan also demanded resignation of the provincial government before any re-election, saying accepting re-election under the present setup would be a political suicide. “Government should resign and fresh elections should be held under the judiciary,” he added.

He said that in ‘New Pakhtunkhwa’ had set up a dangerous trend by implicating ANP leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain in a murder case. He added that due to rigged elections the people of the province stood up against “Kaptan” and the days of those, who rigged the polls, were numbered.

Also read: KP government, assembly should go: Asfandyar

The ANP leader said that from then onwards he and Maulana Fazlur Rehman would wage joint struggle against the provincial government, which conducted the most rigged elections in the country.

Central leader of PPP and former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf put forward the same demand of resignation of the provincial government, saying they had rejected the “massively rigged” polls.

He said that Imran Khan had launched a big campaign against rigging in general elections and had even challenged the parliament and rejected it. However, he added, despite those claims when local governments were held in his province those were the most rigged elections in the history of the country.

“Imran Khan is answerable to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as to why rigging took place here,” Raja Pervez said, adding the controversial election proved the contradiction between his deeds and sayings.

“So far Imran Khan does not know the basics of democracy,” he said. He also termed PTI a group of political orphans.

The meeting passed a declaration wherein the local government elections of May 30 were termed the most rigged polls wherein activists of PTI were openly stamping ballot papers and had made the election staff and voters hostage.

The declaration states that the elections had exposed the dark face of the provincial government.

It was after many years that a public meeting was held in Khyber Bazzar. Police had taken security measures and also installed walk-through scanning gates. Roads leading to the venue were closed to traffic.

Earlier, Raja Pervez Ashraf told a press briefing that after massive rigging in the local government elections people had lost trust in the electoral process and it was up to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Election Commission of Pakistan to provide viable solution for defusing the existing situation.

He said that holding fair and impartial election was the responsibility of provincial government, but if they had to rig the polls through their returning officers then there was no need of holding elections.

The PPP leader said that rigging did happen in political system but it was the responsibility of government to stop its administrative officers from rigging elections. He said that because of widespread rigging and mismanagement, the recent local government elections had left a very negative impact.

To a query regarding offer of dialogue by the provincial government to leaders of the tripartite alliance, he said that it was a political stunt and the government had to take six steps forward for defusing the situation.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play