ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari yesterday said that elections in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) could not be postponed under the Constitution.
In a meeting with PPP-AJK leaders here, Bilawal said the federal government wanted to postpone AJK elections as it had failed to get candidates for elections. PPP-AJK President Latif Akbar and Opposition Leader in AJK Assembly Ch Yasin called on Bilawal here. Former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf was also present on the occasion. The PPP AJK leaders briefed the PPP chairman about the political situation in the valley. They informed him that the party workers were determined to win the upcoming elections.
Bilawal said the AJK was a stronghold of the PPP. He directed to run a full-fledged campaign for free and fair elections in AJK. He claimed that the PPP candidates would win the AJK elections AJK with thumping majority.
Earlier, the National Command Operation Center recommended a two-month delay in AJK elections due to Covid. The NCOC wrote a letter to the AJK Election Commission chief, recommending a two-month delay in the election. The letter said the election could cause a spread of coronavirus cases.
PPP leaders hopeful of thumping victory
The NCOC said that only a million people could be vaccinated by year-end. It said that the spread rate of Covid cases were already high in AJK, adding that the election in July could give rise to the cases.
Previously, AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider had said that elections in AJK must be conducted on time and should not be delayed—just like the holding of by-polls in Pakistan despite the pandemic. The AJK premier said that Pakistan and India must not violate the 1957 resolution on the Kashmir issue.
Yesterday, former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said that the PPP would not allow the federal government to delay the upcoming AJK polls.
Speaking to journalists here, he said that the government could not steal the people’s mandate. “PPP rejects any decision to delay and rig the elections. The elections must be held on time,” he said.
Ashraf said transparent, unbiased, and timely elections should be held in AJK, adding that the government would reap what it was sowing.