Pakistan: Kashmiri refugees in Balochistan show scant interest in PoK polls
Jul 27, 2021
Balochistan [Pakistan], July 27 : Scores of Kashmiri refugees residing in Balochistan showed little interest in the recently concluded polls in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and not a single voter turned up at many polling stations, Dawn has reported.
The PoK Legislative Assembly elections on Sunday saw Imran Khan's PTI emerging as the single largest party with 25 seats. Out of 45 assembly seats, 33 are for PoK residents and 12 for refugees settled in various cities of Pakistan.
Local media said that the polling stations were set up in seven districts, but Kashmiri voters turned up only in Quetta and Sibi.
Concerned officials informed the Pakistani daily that not a single voter turned up at the polling stations in Nasirabad, Kech, Mastung, Barkhan and Qila Saifullah. The polling staff, however, remained at the polling stations till the end.
The Dawn report said that Kashmiri refugees cast their votes in three polling stations. Out of seven districts set for polling, only two saw the casting of votes. Soon after the polling ended on Sunday, opposition parties accused the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government of "rigging" the elections.
Slamming Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) party, the top opposition leaders in the country are mulling moving the courts and holding a protest drive against the alleged rigging in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) elections.
Pakistan Muslim League (N) has accused Prime Minister Imran Khan's PTI government of using its machinery to rig the polls, Dawn reported.
"I have not accepted the PoK election results... and I will not. I had neither accepted the results of the 2018 general election nor this fake government. The PML-N will soon announce a strategy on this shameful rigging in the PoK polls," PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz tweeted.
