Gul Naseeb elected provincial head of MMA

PESHAWAR: After getting the driving seat at the centre, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) on Wednesday successfully managed to clinch the top slot of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for its leader Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman has already been elected the central president of the religious parties’ alliance. “Maulana Gul Naseeb has been elected the provincial president of the MMA while Abdul Wasi would be the general secretary of the alliance for KP,” Liaqat Baloch, the central general secretary of the MMA, told reporters after a meeting at the al-Markaz-e-Islami on Wednesday. Abdul Wasi is the provincial general secretary of the JI.

Fayyaz Khan of Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Dr Iqbal Khalil of JI, Maulana Fazlur Rahman Madani of the Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith, Allama Hameed Hussain of the Islami Tehreek would be the provincial vice-presidents of the MMA.

Maulana Shujaul Mulk, Maulana Merajuddin, Dr Zakir Shah and Muzaffar Ali would be the deputy general secretaries, Mufti Kifayatullah will be finance secretary and Noorul Haq will be information secretary of the MMA in KP.

Talking to reporters, Liaqat Baloch and Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of the JUI-F announced that the MMA would observe solidarity with the Palestinian people on May 18.

They said that people should be allowed to elect their representatives. “The MMA will emerge victorious as all the parties in the alliance will go door-to-door to convince the public that only the coalition of the religious parties can pull the country out of the crises,” said Liaqat Baloch.

He said that if politicians gave respect to their voters, then the establishment or anyone else cannot defeat them. The MMA leaders asked the people to unite under the banner of the alliance in the upcoming general election. They lashed out at the turncoats, saying they have defamed the politics and democracy for their own vested interests.

Several meetings of the MMA that were held to decide the provincial office-bearers ended without taking any decision as the JI wanted the top slot. It had argued that JUI-F had already got the lead role in the centre. The differences delayed the decision for weeks.

The MMA ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for five years after the religious alliance got majority in the provincial assembly in the 2002 general election. The JUI-F was the major coalition partner as it had the office of the chief minister and other important portfolios in the cabinet.

The JI was given the slot of speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly while the incumbent party chief, Senator Sirajul Haq, was made senior minister in the provincial cabinet. Sirajul Haq later quit the cabinet to focus on his responsibilities as provincial amir of his party.

Recently the JI was coalition partner of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government while the JUI-F was part of the federal government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Both had announced quitting respective governments to enter the new alliance.