LAHORE, Dec 26: PPP Senator Sardar Latif Khosa said on Wednesday President Pervez Musharraf had yet to prove that he was neutral in the election, making the party believe that he was involved in pre-poll rigging.

“He (Musharraf) must remain impartial and play his due role in ensuring credible and transparent elections which are of great importance for national integrity and solidarity”, Khosa said at a news conference here.

He also announced that the party was discussing adjustments with the PML-N on three Sindh and 23 Punjab seats. He, together with party’s Punjab election monitoring cell president Chaudhry Munawar Anjum, explained how the cell would work during the election, particularly on the polling day.

They announced establishment of a shadow election commission by the PPP to “counter all attempts to engineer polling results and educate party’s polling agents on how to work during the election”.

They accused the Election Commission of Pakistan of being partisan, saying it had taken notice of only 58 out of more than 1,000 complaints regarding pre-poll rigging and violations of rules and regulations. The situation lent credence to the suspicions regarding the election process and was also encouraging the former ruling party to hold the polls hostage, they alleged.

Ms Benazir Bhutto had been expressing her reservations in this regard but neither the election commission nor the government was taking any remedial measures, they deplored.

They said the local governments, too, were partisan but no solid steps were being taken to stop their interference and rigging attempts. They must immediately be suspended to ensure free and fair election, the speakers demanded.

The PPP leaders said the caretaker governments were the extension of the PML-Q government. The caretaker ministers were either contesting the election or supporting their kin, they said, also accusing the prime minister of being partial. “He was the Senate chairman and under the law could not become the caretaker prime minister”, they claimed.

Khosa also criticised the bureaucracy for taking sides and showing allegiance to the government rather than the state or the people. It should become impartial to allow people to freely elect their representatives, he demanded.

The government, he said, was recruiting volunteers who would wear police uniform and create unrest on the polling day, allowing the casting of 25,000 bogus votes for the PML-Q candidates to the NA seats and 15,000 to the PP seats. “But it will not be able to digest the rigging because we will actively monitor the election”, he made it clear.

Khosa said the 6,000 bogus votes detected by the PPP in the constituency of Benazir Bhutto had not been deleted by the election commission despite repeated requests.

He and others at the press conference said the Punjab government was sending cheques to the people under the Kifalat Programme, carrying the message to vote for former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi. The cheques were being sent from The Mall secretariat of the chief minister, they claimed.

Replying to questions, Khosa said Muzaffargarh, Attock and Bhakkar in Punjab and most Sindh cities were sensitive and the government must post Rangers or army there to ensure free election.

Earlier, Khosa and Anjum said master trainers had been sent to districts where they would educate 64,000 polling agents on the election. The cell was computerised and the polling agents would remain in contact with it on mobile phones conveying rigging or true election results without any loss of time, they added.