Religious parties meet in Lahore today

ISLAMABAD: Top leaders from six religious parties will meet in Lahore on Sunday to look into the possibility of overcoming ‘ideological and political’ differences to revive their broken electoral alliance.

The meeting to revive the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) is being convened on the heels of a similar session in Islamabad last month for the same purpose.

Out of these six parties only two — Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) — will play a substantial role in the revival of the alliance.

In the last meeting, the JI set the condition of the JUI-F pulling out of the coalition government for any possible revival of the alliance. According to reports, Maulana Fazl had assured that his party would part ways with the ruling coalition but later developments suggested that he has other plans.

On Saturday again, JI chief Munawar Hassan repeated the demand for MMA’s revival.He told journalists in Lahore that the only way to reunite religious parties under the banner of MMA was that “none of the groups is part of the American-backed government.” The meeting, held at the headquarters of the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith of Allama Sajid Mir, would also discuss the issues of terrorism and Talibanisation.

Sympathisers of these parties at more than 12,000 Deobandi madrasahs are also expected to attend the gathering.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2010.