PPP more active in media management on AJK polling day

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 28 July 2021

The PPP displayed enhanced media activity during the AJK elections, focusing on alleged irregularities. Both major parties kept the media engaged with statements and complaints throughout the polling day.

Summary

ISLAMABAD—The performance of media managers of the PPP was comparatively more active during the recently-held elections in the AJK, Dawn reported.

The country’s two major opposition parties—Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)—under a planned strategy, kept the national media engaged throughout the polling day by issuing statements of their leaders, copies of written complaints submitted to the election commission, and video clips from various constituencies highlighting alleged rigging and irregularities in the AJK elections.

The PPP media managers were more active than the PML-N’s media team in highlighting incidents of alleged irregularities on the polling day. They released copies of nearly 40 complaints that the party’s Central Election Cell, headed by Senator Taj Haider, had submitted to the AJK’s election commission from time to time. Besides, they issued statements of various leaders accusing the federal government, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), of interfering in the polling process.

Former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and PPP’s Secretary-General Farhatullah Babar, with other party leaders, also held an emergency news conference in Islamabad. They alleged that the federal government had made the AJK elections violent and controversial.

Around noon, PML-N’s Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb issued a statement. She alleged that polling agents of the party candidates in many constituencies were being harassed by police and not allowed to enter polling stations.