‘Govt has failed to deliver’

LAHORE
Speakers at a seminar has said the government is the product of a rigged and unconstitutional election and it has delivered nothing to the poor except weakening democracy.
They said the eyes of the whole nation were set on the Judicial Commission and hoped its decision would end corruption and rigging in elections once and for all.
They were addressing the seminar titled ‘Rigged elections an outcome of unconstitutional elections” under Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) on the completion of two years of the assemblies on Monday.
Those addressed the seminar included opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Mian Mehmood ul Rashid, secretary Majlis Wahdat ul Muslimeen Amin Shaheedi, former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Fareed Paracha, Mian Imran Masood of PML-Q, senior lawyer Abdul Rasheed, Sunni Ittehad leader Mufti Haseeb Qadri, minorities leader Martin Javeed, Syed Naubahar Shah, Dr Ahsan Mehmood, civil society leader Abdullah Malik, secretary of PAT Khurram Nawaz Gandapur and Sohail Raza, while Jawad Hamid was the stage secretary.
Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali said the minority’s leader who voted in favour of Pakistan must be thinking what the state was doing when minorities were killed in Kot Radha Kishan and Gojra. He said rulers should learn something from Khutba-ul-Juma Tul-Vida given by the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and the August 11, 1948 address of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Dr Fareed Paracha said the difference between elections in Pakistan and India was that the election commission in India was free from any sort of political influence while in Pakistan everything was done according to the desire of politicians. He asked: Why we cannot form an independent election commission so that nobody could point finger on election results”. He said elections in Pakistan were won by only the corrupt and mafias and the present elections cost over Rs 70 billion and each citizen now owes Rs 80,000. He said the time has come that every person in Pakistan must stand up against this system.
Khurram Nawaz Gandapur said elections were held in violation of Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution and people were forced to cast their ballots was a mockery of the electoral process. He said apart from giving its verdict the JC must also recommend strict action against those who reached the assemblies with fake degrees and those who evade paying taxes. “When we challenged the corruption of the rulers, our 14 workers were martyred and over 85 left injured. We will not rest until we get justice for those killed by police in the Model Town incident,” he said and alleged: “State-sponsored terrorism against PAT leaders and workers cannot dent our courage and we will continue our struggle against this corrupt system and rulers who have emerged as a result of corrupt and unconstitutional elections”.
Mian Mehmood-ul-Rashid said in case of need his party would join PAT against the corrupt system. He said the interim government was the mastermind of the rigging and gave the present rulers a false mandate. We decided to stay within the ambit of the constitution otherwise these rulers would not have stayed in power for more than two months, he said and added what kind of system is this where a senior lawyer, Hamid Khan, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan had to wait for two years to get justice. He paid rich tributes to the workers of PAT seeking a true democracy and elimination of this corrupt system.
Dr Hassan Mohiuddin Qadri said only PAT leaders and workers came out on streets against this corrupt system. He said it was now proved that assemblies had no need of educated people as they struck down the condition of graduation for parliamentarians.