MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed on Monday declared that he would not bow to any `external pressure or dictation` to hold general elections in the first week of June.

`The government will fulfil its constitutional obligation to conduct elections on time, but some power-hungry people are making baseless propaganda that the elections are being held on June 4 or 5,` he said in a statement.

`I want to make it clear to them that neither will we go against the Constitution and law, nor allow anyone else to do so,` he added.

The statement came a day after the AJK Election Commission announced that Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ghulam Mustafa Mughal, also the chief justice of the AJK High Court, had summoned a meeting of all political parties on Wednesday for consultations on preparation/review of the voters` lists and formulation of a `code of conduct` for the polls.

Earlier in the day, a soft statement was issued by the PM`s office, but it was later replaced by a harsh one, with a volley of accusations against the main opposition PML-N and some federal ministers.

`The PML-N will fail in its planning to hold elections before time. Their conspiracies to hijack elections through prepoll rigging will also fall flat,` the premier said.

`Those who have been disregarding the identity of the state, promoting politics of clans and areas and exploiting people in times gone by, must bear in mind that they won`t get power through external support,` he added.Mr Majeed claimed that the PPP would return to power with a two-third majority on the basis of its performance and election manifesto.

He alleged that some shortsighted PML-N leaders wanted to knock off elections with the help of federal ministers who had tried in vain over the past two months to pollute AJK`s peaceful political culture.

In the earlier statement, Mr Majeed had urged the CEC to devise a comprehensive strategy in consultation with all political parties for the timely elections.

He had also asl
Reacting to the allegations of the AJK premier, PML-N senior vice-president Chaudhry Tariq Farooq regretted that Mr Majeed and his team were bent upon spoiling AJK`s atmosphere because of their desperate attempts to delay the elections.

`Under the election laws, it`s the prerogative of the CEC to announce the schedule for elections, including the polling day, but it is ironical that a person who has held the office of prime minister for almost five years and claims himself to be a law graduate flies in the face of legal position,` he told Dawn.

Mr Farooq claimed that the AJK government was also contemplating amending election laws to divest the CEC of this authority.

When contacted, the CEC said: `I am not a politician to give a statement but 1 must make it clear that I will do whatever is enunciated in the Constitution and the relevant laws.