Candidates get together: ‘JI has no ethnic or regional bias’

Convention for national and provincial assemblies held.

LAHORE: “Our party does not believe in highlighting ethnic or regional prejudices for electoral gains,” Jamaat-i-Islami Ameer Syed Munawwar Hasan said on Sunday.

He was addressing a convention of the JI candidates for the national and provincial assemblies from the Punjab at Mansoora.

Hasan said that regional, ethnic and racial prejudices were being raised in the country for political considerations. The JI, he said, would mobilise the masses using positive and constructive viewpoints rather than negative slogans.

The JI chief said that PML (N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif had not fulfilled many of his promises.

“For instance, Mian Sahib announced holding an all party conference on Balochistan, but it was never held,” he said. He said despite mentioning getting in touch with the JI and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf to initiate a movement for dislodging Yousaf Raza Gilani’s government, the PML-N chief was “busy in his solo flight.”

He said though the prime minister had the legal right of appeal against the Supreme Court’s judgment, “he was morally required to step down”.

To a question about the revival of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), he said in spite of pressure from the MMA parties, Maulana Fazlur Rahman had not distanced himself from the PPP and the president.

Instead, he said, the maulana was clinging to the Kashmir Committee and his party men were also holding several other high offices. “The JI cannot be thrown at his mercy. As such, the matter of revival is not clear,” Hasan added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2012.