Raja Pervaiz accuses govt of pre-poll rigging in AJK

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Secretary General Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Raja Pervaiz Ashraf Monday accused the government for pre-poll rigging in elections of Azad Jammu and Kashmir scheduled to be held on July 21 and said that interference in election was damaging the Kashmir cause.

“The Nawaz Sharif government damaging the Kashmir cause with its friendship with Modi policy and that was reason it did not raise the voice against the atrocities of Indian security forces in Indian Held Kashmir,” he said, while addressing the press conference here Monday along with former deputy speaker National Assembly Faisal Karim Kundi and Nazir Dhoki. The former prime minister said it was first time that the Pakistan government did not raise the voice against Indian atrocities in Indian Held Kashmir because of friendship of Nawaz Sharif with his Indian counterpart.

“The federal government was spending government funds and use the state-owned TV for live coverage of the rallies of the ministers especially of PM’s political secretary Asif Karmani whose speeches were telecast live on state run TV while the opposition election rallies were completely blacked out,” he added. He said the federal ministers were using defamatory language in the election campaign in Azad Kashmir against their political opponents.

He said the AJK Election Commission had issued the notices to AJK prime minister but not issued a single notice to any federal minister who was running the election campaign in the AJK.

The ex-premier said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was following the same policy on Kashmir which was formulated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. “Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had announced to fight the war for Kashmir for 1000 years while the government of Nawaz Sharif was adopting pro-Modi policy. He said during the tenure of PPP, the relation between Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iran was better than the PML-N government.