PPP asks PDM to withdraw notice, seek apology

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party Sunday asked the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) to withdraw the show-cause notice and seek apology from the party leadership.

“The PPP formed the PDM. Who are these people who want us to approach them to rejoin the PDM? Instead, they should come to us, take back the show-cause notice and apologise to us,” said PPP Parliamentarians Secretary General Farhatullah Babar. He was addressing a press conference along with PPP Secretary General Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and party’s media coordinator Nazir Dhoki here.

The PPP also rejected the dialogue offer of Prime Minister Imran Khan on electoral reforms and Electronic Voting Machine. He said the PM was stuck in a dead-end street and was making offers of talks to the opposition on non-issues. However, he added, the events of past 30 months and his [PM] style of governance showed that talks and negotiations were against his temperament. He claimed that the government was not serious about negotiating with the opposition. “They are incompetent,” he said.

The PPP leader said the Election Commission had decided a recount in constituency NA-249 at the PML-N request in the by-elections. “While we welcome this decision, the manner in which such a situation was handled in the 2018 elections was very different,” he added.

Farhat said his party “wants to see the Election Commission of Pakistan strong. The same was said in the 2018 elections that where the winning margin was less than 5%, there should have been a recount there,” he added.

He said the recount should have been held in 34 constituencies, which was not conducted, and only recount in two constituencies was started, but never completed.

He said that constituency NA-249 was not new to the PPP as a PPP candidate had also won from this constituency in 1988 elections. He said the PPP did not have a large majority of votes in this constituency. But it showed groundwork, activism and won the seat he added.

He said that only the Election Commission could explain the reasons for delay in the vote counting process. However, there were 30 candidates and eight election observers, who had to be given Form 45 during Ramazan. “For this exercise, the Election Commission has to fill 10-12 forms,” he said.

Farhatullah Babar said had they lost the election, they would never have raised the issue. “We believe in election laws,” he said. He said that in the recount, the votes of PPP may increase. He told the PML-N to go to the Election Commission but do not say that the PPP had come through the help of the establishment. “Our movement is against Imran Khan and not the opposition,” he said.

In a reply to a question, Farhat said the internet was being tampered with in the name of security in Pakistan. He said the electronic voting would be more dangerous here as the countries that started it had also given it up later on. “Imran Khan should know that there is a report by NADRA about Electronic Voting Machine,” he added.

Nayyar Bukhari said that the ground realities were very clear as the PPP candidate had been present in the constituency. Qadir Mandokhel is a political activist. “He has experimented with other political parties in the past like the PML-N and the PTI,” he said.

He said the PTI had introduced a technocrat Hafeez Shaikh, who lost the Senate election. In NA-249, the PML-N introduced another technocrat, Miftah Ismail who also lost. Before this, the role of the PTI candidate in the constituency was also in front of everyone, who used to bring shoes and put them on the table and sometimes came with pistols. Bukhari said the PML-N harmed the PDM. “The PPP was ready for a long march and no-confidence motion against the government,” he added.