PPP concerned about pressure on candidates

ISLAMABAD: The PPP leadership is perturbed by complaints of their candidates of facing pressure that either they join the PTI or contest the election as independent.

Sources said former opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah and former Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani have communicated to former President Asif Ali Zardari the unseen pressure on the party candidates for changing loyalties or contest the election as independents.

Sources said some candidates of PPP who have bright chances to win the elections from Sindh were being pressured to change their loyalties.

Sources said the issue of unseen pressure from the hidden hands on the PPP candidate mostly from Sindh and South Punjab was discussed in the meeting of the PPP at Ratodero the other day and it was decided that the party will not bow before any pressure.

PPP Parliamentarians Secretary General Farhatullah Babar said some agencies seem to be actively engaged in political re-engineering to achieve some undisclosed objectives. “We are also keeping a close watch,” he said.

He said PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in his speech on June 21 in Larkana warned against alleged meddling by state agencies in the elections. “What he said was not some off the cough comment or a thoughtless remark but was deliberate and calculated,” he said.

He said Bilawal was not used to speaking thoughtlessly.” It should be clear to everyone,” he said.