Govt is trying to put off polls:Munawar Hassan

Lahore: Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Syed Munawar Hasan,
has said that the rulers were not serious for holding elections on time and wanted to delay the polls for a year.

Addressing the Sheikhupura district bar on Tuesday, he said that the Opposition parties would have to join hands and form a Grand Alliance on the one point agenda of timely elections. He said the tradition of timely elections in the country was very weak and the masses had to come on roads for the polls.He said, the rulers had planned to start military operation in North Waziristan under the cover of the Malala incident but it had proved a failure. The government might cook up some other excuse for this purpose, he added.

He said that the assemblies in the country were in the grip of about five hundred families, but if the masses inflicted a crushing defeat to only two hundred of their candidates in the polls, the way for the solution of their problems would be clear and the politics of loot and plunder would come to an end.

Syed Munawar Hasan said that a change in the country through ballot appeared to be a dream, yet the JI did not want to adopt any other course.
He said, the PPP and the PML(N) missed no opportunity of character assassination of each other but they were providing cover to each other’s corruption.
The JI Ameer said that the military operations could not bring peace in the country and the government should have to adopt the path of dialogue. He said that the US was anxious to hold talks with the Taliban while the Pakistan government was being prevented from talks with the Taliban despite the killings of innocent women and children by drone attacks. Afghanistan had become grave yard for the US just as it had proved graveyard for Britain and the Soviet Union in the past. He called upon the Army Chief to explain why the armed forces were not being pulled out from Swat if peace had been restored there.
He said the strategy of war had changed with the passage of time and the use of force in Afghanistan for a decade had proved futile. The menace of terrorism in the country was increasing with every passing day. He said the US interference was the biggest issue facing the country, and it could not be truly independent without ending that.