News Desk |
Central leaders of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have expressed their concern over the ECP decision to deploy the army inside the polling stations.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad the PPP leaders Nayyar Bukhari and Farhatullah Babar have demanded Election Commission not to deploy Army inside the polling stations in Ghotki and FATA, if ECP unable to do so the elections would be considered as rigged.
PPP Secretary General, Nayyar Bukhari said that Army was deployed inside different polling stations in the general elections of 2018, due to which 95 percent form 45 cannot be signed by the polling agents, the forms uploaded by the ECP were fake ones.
Bukhari said, “Managing elections is basically the job of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Candidates of the PPP and the ruling party (PTI) are fighting the by-election in Ghotki.”
He said to ensure a free and fair election required the army to be stationed outside the polling stations during the election. “Deployment of army is not fair in the presence of the presiding officer,” he added.
Babar said, “The army is being deployed at all polling stations in Ghotki, while in tribal areas they are only posted at sensitive polling stations. Is this area more sensitive than the areas affected by terrorism?”
To a question, he said never ever had a political party demanded army presence in polling stations.
As merged tribal districts of erstwhile FATA go for provincial assembly elections for the first time, Pakhtunkhwa governor Shah Farman told BBC that deputing army at polling stations is done “to ensure transparency in elections.” (8:45)https://t.co/vbd3rC0Lxj
— Sahar Baloch (@Saherb1) July 20, 2019
He said, “All polling stations in Ghotki have been declared sensitive. Army was deployed at the polling stations in tribal areas during election. We protested that the army should be deployed only at sensitive polling stations.”
They said that it is the prime responsibility of ECP to conduct free and transparent elections. A number of land revenue officers were arrested in Sindh to influence the election process.
Read more: Has the PPP violated ECP’s Code of Conduct?
The PPP General Secretary informed the reporters that out of 290 polling stations of Ghotki 130 were declared as sensitive, so Army can be deployed. We have written a letter to Election Commission and also we are in contact with provincial office, if the army is deployed inside polling stations, the elections will not be considered as free and transparent.