The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Tuesday rejected a letter by the National Command and Operation Centre suggesting postponing the Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections for two months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
PML-N leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi spoke to the media in Islamabad about PML-N’s stance over NCOC’s letter. “What has NCOC got to do with [the] elections?” Abbasi asked, saying that this is a conspiracy for rigging. “The same thing that happened in Gilgit-Baltistan is being repeated in Azad Kashmir,” he said.
Abbasi questioned whether NCOC talking about a delay in elections is constitutional. “Haven’t elections been held in other parts of the country?” he asked, and insisted that this is an attempt to “steal” the elections in AJK. “Let the elections be held according to the will of the people,” Abbasi said, adding that the PML-N wants the elections in AJK to be on time. “We reject the NCOC letter. It should be withdrawn,” he said. “Consider it resistance or reconciliation, but the politics of PML-N is based on the constitution and principles,” he said.
The Pakistan People’s Party Azad Jammu and Kashmir (PPP-AJK) also turned down the suggestion of NCOC to postpone general elections for two months.
President PPP-AJK Chaudhary Latif Akbar told a press conference that his party would organize a protest rally on June 5 in AJK’s capital Muzaffarabad against the letter written by NCOC to Chief Election Commissioner AJK. He apprehended that the government in the Centre was planning to manipulate the general election in AJK by establishing an interim set-up in the region as it did in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). He said that said letter was unlawful and without any mandate and must be ignored as constitution does not provide any power to election commission for considering such a suggestion. He said the people of AJK will react strongly against such an extra constitutional act.
The NCOC had written a letter to Chief Election Commissioner AJK two days earlier suggesting him to postpone the general election as the public gatherings could intensify the spread of Covid-19. The letter was circulated on social media but a spokesperson of the election commission said they had yet to receive the letter and that decision will be made according to the provisions of the law and interim constitution of AJK.
