Professional Group accuses rivals of rigging

LAHORE - Members of the Professional Group, who have fielded Ali Ahmad Kurd as Presidential candidate in the Supreme Court Bar election being held on Tuesday (today), has accused the rivals of openly doing pre-election rigging wherein they added, Attorney General of Pakistan Sardar Latif Khan Khosa and Chief Justice of Pakistan are also involved.
Addressing a packed press conference here Monday Professional Group members accused that other candidate M Zafar is being supported by the PPP government and a section of lawyers of this party in his support are resorting to every means to engineer the election in favour of their candidate. We want win of Ali Ahmad Kurd because we support continuation of the movement for the rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution wherein lies real survival of the country.
While the other side wanted to end the movement for their personal gains at the cost of national interests, which have to be inevitably secured through the rule of law at the head of an independent judiciary, said President Lahore High Court Bar Association Anwar Kamal, former President SCBA Hamid Khan, former President LHCBA Ahmad Awais, and Pir Khurshed Ahmad Kalim, President Lahore Bar Association, Manzoor Qadir, Mian Abdul Qadoos, Rana Asadullah Khan, Raja Zulqurnain and others at the joint press conference.
Mr Kamal accused that the office of the Attorney General had become an election office for Mr Zafar while Hamid Khan on his turn responding to a query said, (Chief Justice of Pakistan) Abdul Hamid Dogar was staying in Karachi to personally contact the voters and woo them on the side of Zafar. Look at the lavish spending on meals at star hotels by the rivals to allure the voters, which speaks of the fact they were going to every length to win the elections, Kamal said while vehemently discarding any chance of Mr Kurd being defeated despite all that.