PPP-AJK urges election commission to withdraw polling schedule for 12 refugee seats amid unrest

ISLAMABAD: PPP’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) chapter on Sunday urged the region’s election commission to immediately withdraw the election schedule for 12 refugee seats, stressing the need for dialogue to defuse the ongoing crisis. The call comes ahead of the July 27 elections in AJK amid widespread protests by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) over their demand to abolish 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly that are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. Elections for these seats are held separately from the 33 general seats in AJK, with refugees registered in 12 constituencies across Pakistan voting for their representatives. PPP-AJK President Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin, who addressed a crowded press conference at Kashmir House following a meeting of the party’s core committee, said that to deal with the existing challenges and tensions in the region, negotiations and political consensus were unavoidable. “The central focus of PPP’s politics has always been the Kashmir issue. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto played a historic role in highlighting the Kashmir cause at the global level,” he said. He noted that over the last seven months, the government had made serious efforts to resolve public issues and strengthen democratic institutions, recalling the implementation of “37 out of 38” demands of the JAAC from an agreement the group signed with the government last year in October. “Only the constitutional matter relating to refugee seats remained under consideration, for which alternative legal and constitutional avenues exist,” he noted. Yasin maintained that issuing the election timetable just three days before JAAC’s June 9 protest call was “not an appropriate decision”. During negotiations, all parties had adopted a positive attitude, and JAAC was asked for a one-week extension, which was not granted, he said. “Under the current circumstances, holding