Political barter: ‘Jamaat-i-Islami wanted KP governorship, 50 per cent of MMA tickets’

JUI-F Punjab chief dismisses JI criticism as ‘eyewash’.

RAHIM YAR KHAN:

The Jamaat-i-Islami demanded, in return for restoring the Mutthida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), that they be given the governorship in Khyber-Paktunkhwa and also wanted 50 per cent of the tickets.

This was stated by Jamaat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-F Punjab amir Maulana Rashid Ludhiyanvi on Sunday at a press conference.

Ludhiyanvi said that Jamaat-i-Islami’s (JI) opposition and objections to the revival of the MMA were mere eyewash. He dismissed Syed Munawwar Hasan’s statement that Maulana Fazlur Rehman had made the MMA listless as “contrary to the facts”, saying that it was Hasan who had rendered the JI listless.

The Punjab chief said that Jamaat-i-Islami’s fickle policies were “beyond comprehension”.

The party, he said, had had no objections in contesting election as part of the MMA but had decided to boycott elections in 2008. “The decision cost them their vote bank and has made them irrelevant,” Ludhiyanvi said, “and now they want to contest elections as a part of an alliance with either the PML-N or the PTI.”

“Had the JI listened to Fazlur Rehman instead of Nawaz Sharif, they would still have their vote bank intact,” said the JUI-F Punjab chief. Ludhiyanvi criticised the JI for having its feet in two different boats – Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif. He said the party was waiting to see which leader could promise it seats “enough to sate” the party leadership.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2012.