Sitting in assemblies needless, says Qazi
Bureau Report

KARACHI—President Muttahida Majlis-e-Ammal (MMA) and Amir Jamat Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed has said that there is no justification to sit in the assemblies after the passage of un-Islamic Women’s Protection Bill, adding that the decision of resignation from assemblies was final and nobody should have any doubts on it.
The differences among the component parties of the alliance regarding quitting assemblies would be sorted out in next meeting of MMA Supreme Council and the strategy for launching final show down against the regime would be given final shape. He was addressing a press conference with JUP President Shah Anas Noorani, after the meeting of Jamiat Ulema Pakistan’s Central Executive Committee’s (CEC) here at the resident of Shah Anas Noorani. Prof. Shah Faridul Haq, Sahibzada Abul Khair Zubair, Siddique Rathore, Shabir Abu Talib and others were also present on the occasion. Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Prof. Ghafoor Ahmed attended JUP’s CEC meeting on special invitation. Sources said that the CEC of JUP strongly demanded the president of the alliance to get implemented the decision of MMA Supreme Council of quitting assemblies after the passage of the controversial Women’s Protection Bill.
The JUP executive committee was of the view that if the alliance did not keep its words of quitting assemblies then it credibility among the masses would be at stake. The members of the JUP high powered committee opined that the decision of resignation from assemblies to protest the passage of the bill was taken unanimously in the earlier meeting of Supreme Council so it must be implemented forthwith to maintain the confidence of masses on religious alliance. Qazi said that after Eidul Azha the supreme council of the alliance would adopt a unanimous decision regarding the resignations issue. We are not tendering resignation to sit home, but we want to go straight to masses from assemblies and launch a final showdown against the military-led regime, he commented.
Dispelling the impression of reported split among MMA ranks, he said that MMA was united and the reports about spilt was part of ‘disinformation’. When he was asked that MMA General Secretary and his party was against the resignation from assemblies while a component party of the alliance was in favour to immediately quit assemblies, so could there be a ‘middle way out’ of the crisis in the MMA ranks, he said that only MMA Supreme Council could find the middle way out. As far as the decision to resign from the assemblies is concerned it was taken by MMA Supreme Council and we stick to it till there would be any other decision by the Supreme Council, he remarked.