Siraj warns against uncertainty over polls

LAHORE: Jamaat Islami ameer and MMA vice president Senator Sirajul Haq expressed his concern over growing uncertainty among the masses about the July 25 elections and warned the caretaker government that its foremost duty and mandate was to ensure free, fair and impartial elections.

Addressing an ulema convention at Mansoorah on Thursday, Sirajul Haq said the nation wanted fair elections on July 25, not selection, adding that the caretaker government must not give any impression of bias towards any party from its actions. Siraj stressed that MMA was the real alternative to PML-N, PPP and PTI, and said on July 25 there would be a clash of "civilisations" at polling stations since at one hand there would be secular and liberal forces while on the other side would be people trying to enforce Shariah in the country. He urged the countrymen to vote for MMA to enable it materialise the dream of the creation of Pakistan instead of letting the country drift towards secularism any further.

Siraj warned the caretaker government that any extra-constitutional measure at the juncture could destroy national unity and solidarity beyond repair. He alleged that rejected and discarded leaderships were contesting elections from the main political parties while it was only MMA that had fielded genuine and clean leadership so that the country could be made self-sufficient and bring back all plundered wealth which the mainstream political leaderships had looted and kept in foreign banks and soil in the shape of properties.

The convention was also addressed by MMA candidate from PP-135 and 161, Amirul Azeem, candidate from PP-173 Zikrullah Mujahid, Khwaja Moeenuddin Koreja, custodian of Lal Shahbaz Qalander shrine Pir Fazal Raza Mehdi, Pir Usman Noori, Maulana Nizamuddin Ashrafi, Maulana Amin Ajiz, Maulana Azam Qasim, Maulana Abdul latif Ashrafi, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Qari mamoon Rasheed and Qari Waqar Chitrali.