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Religious parties’ meetingon 12th

By Asim Hussain
October 03, 2017

Alliance likely

LAHORE: Country’s major religious parties have made quite headway in forming a new alliance which has reached the final stages and a formal announcement could be made in the next few days, sources told The News. 

The sources said the new proposed alliance is likely to include newly emerged religio-political parties which are known as the offshoots of the defunct religious organisations banned for their sectarian affiliations by different governments in the past. Among these new parties likely to be included in the proposed alliance are Milli Muslim League (MML), Majlis Wahdat Muslemin (MWM) and others, sources added.

For the last six months, chairman Kashmir Committee of the parliament and chief of his own faction of JUI, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has been the most instrumental in supervising the efforts for the establishment of the proposed religious alliance. Following the completion of the required homework, the summit meeting of the likely component parties of the proposed alliance has been called for October 12 which will be chaired by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is also an ally of ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, according to sources, this meeting will decide whether to resurrect the MMA with new additions and changes, or to set up a new alliance altogether with a new name.

Ever since the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) became defunct following the differences of opinion among the component parties over contesting elections in 2008, the top religious leadership have been making unsuccessful efforts off and on to re-establish the MMA or to establish a new religious alliance.

These decade-long efforts are about to bear fruits as major religio-political parties of the country are about to join hands to set up a new religious alliance, sources said, and added that a formal meeting has been called in Islamabad on October 12 to formally declare the setting up of the proposed religious alliance.

The defunct Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) has been the most successful religious alliance in country’s history which swept the majority seats in KPK assembly in Musharraf-supervised 2002 general elections and also became the major opposition party to the ruling PML-Q in the national assembly.

According to sources, the proposed alliance will focus on the objectives laid down by the MMA, including protection of Islamic laws, values and Islamic articles in the constitution of Pakistan, besides countering the conspiracies to secularise the country by altering its Islamic character.

The sources say the alliance will pose political threats to the majority of PML-N in Punjab and Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI) in KPK. The alliance is likely to damage the ruling PML-N the most in its stronghold-Punjab- wooing the Islamist minded voters away.

A small display of this threat was witnessed in the recent by-elections in NA-120 where two new entrants in political arena, MML and Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), snatched over twelve thousand votes combined from the stronghold of old political parties including Pakistan Muslim League-N, Pakistan Peoples Party and Jamaat Islami.

In the KPK, the alliance could repeat the winning feat which the defunct MMA had made in 2002 general elections, the sources added.

The task of briefing the heads of religious parties and bringing them to the meeting has been entrusted to the Deputy chairman Senate and JUI-F secretary general Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri. Before his departure for Saudi Arabia a couple of days back, Maulana Fazlur Rehman held a meeting with Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri and discussed with him some remaining hindrances in the setting up of the proposed alliance. He also advised him to step up his efforts to bring all the likely leaders into in contact for an early decision in this regard.

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri has been active in making contacts with the leaderships of the likely component parties for the last few months.

He has already held meetings with the leaderships of the parties which comprised MMA, and these parties will hold consultations in the opening round of talks. Other religious parties likely to join the alliance will be called in to join at the later stage.

Apart from the major religious parties on country’s political scene, the new religious alliance will also comprise Jamaat ud Dawa backed Milli Muslim League (MML).

Shia organization Majlis Wahdat Muslemin (MWM) and Sunni Tehrik which is affiliated with Barelvi school of thought are the likely components of the alliance.

It will also accommodate a proposed new religio-political party which is in the process of setting up by the former members of defunct Millat Islamia Pakistan (MIP) which was considered an offshoot of banned Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).

The News talked to representatives of different religious parties, but they refused to confirm or deny the development on record. Most of them said: “It would be premature to say anything before the meeting takes place on October 12.”