HYDERABAD: Leaders of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) have announced that their group is going to launch a consistent struggle against the alleged `unprecedented rigging` i Feb 8 polls and the protest sit-in scheduled for Friday (today) at the HyderabadJamshoro interchange was the beginning of the agitation.

The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreelei-Insaf (PTI) would lend support to the GDA protest scheduled for Friday.

Addressing a news conference at the local press club on Thursday, they also reiterated their demand for holding fresh elections to undo the wrong done on Feb 8 during the general elections.

GDA secretary general Dr Safdar Abbasi said that a `fascist mafia` had been thrust upon Sindh in the shape ofwhat he named the `Zardari league` He said that since the opposition had been thrown on roads, therefore, they would pursue their politics on the roads.

Dr Abbasi urged Sindh`s intelligentsia, students, poets, writers and media to participate in the Friday`s protest.

He said the GDA would not sit idle and it would hold protests outside the Sindh Assembly whenever it held its inauguratory session. `Now it is not an issue of Form-45 or Form-47,` he said.

He said that `institutions` should provide free environment and undo the wrong done by them.

GDA spokesman Sardar Rahim said that everyone had had doubts over the credibility of the Feb 8 polls, but the massive rigging seen on Feb 9 had never been imagined. He demanded that the Feb 8 polls must be declared null and void.

`Those who have given impressive bids won the fight. There is talk of Rs12 trillion [changing hands] in the market currently after the general elections.

Seats of Sindh have been sold; what kind of message you are giving to us in Sindh, he asked, giving the answer himself thatpolitics in Pal(istan revolved around Punjab and Punjab`s results would determine the course of other provinces.

Mr Rahim stated that the landscape had been designed in a way to tell the PPP`s opponents to either join the Peoples Party or become irrelevant to the federal politics.

The GDA leader said the situation gave a chance that justice would be done, but at the end of the day a deal was finally struck.

He warned that the people of Sindh were being pushed against the wall and that would lead to serious consequences.

Munir Hyder Shah, who contested a Jamshoro NA seat, said it was interesting that the PPP had been increasing its tally of seats since 2008. `What it has done that merits such increase in its numerical strength in Sindh Assembly in 2018 and then in 2024,` he asked.

He informed that his constituency had 425 polling stations, but he was not allowed to send polling agents to 250 polling stations. `Why don`t you just tell people that either to stay in N-League or Zardari League?` he sarcastically asked.

Hasnain Mirza, son of Dr ZulfiqarMirza, said that in fact the social contract with the people had been shattered.

In the entire framework, the people of Sindh remained missing, he said.

He said the GDA`s movement would continue till those polls were reversed and a truly representative parliament was formed.

The PTI Sindh spokesman said in a statement issued in Karachi on Thursday that the party workers would attend the GDA`s sit-in on Friday. The family of Pir Pagara, he said, had always fought to ensure Pakistan`s stability.

`The results of PTI and GDA winning candidates were changed on Form 47, he said.

The JI Karachi also took the same stand. The party`s Karachi chapter chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman in a recent meeting with the GDA leaders had announced his party`s support and urged the people of Karachi and other parts of Sindh to make the protest successful.

The GDA has also announced protest demonstrations in Sanghar, Thar, Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Sukl(ur, Shahdadpur, Matiari, Umerkot and other areas of Sindh.