MWM, ITP agree in principle over seat adjustment

Cleric Agha Rahat Hussain brokers deal, urges PPP to join coalition

GILGIT: Influential Shia cleric Agha Rahat Hussain Al-Hussaini has managed to broker a deal between Islami Tehreek Pakistan and Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen ahead of the Gilgit-Baltistan legislative assembly elections.

Addressing a ceremony on Sunday, Rahat said it is high time like-minded groups unite for “the greater good”.

“If a party leader asks his candidate to step down in the larger interest, he should obey,” Gilgit Central Imamia Mosque’s prayer leader said. “Those who defy the word of scholars will not remain in our ranks,” he said.



ITP chief Allama Sajid Naqvi, MWM chief Allama Nasir Abbas, former chairman senate Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and former senator Faisal Raza Abidi also spoke on this occasion.

Rahat lambasted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz for laying the groundwork to elect a Kashmiri-minded chief minister in G-B. He urged the Pakistan Peoples Party to join hands with the coalition to keep “unfavourable forces” at bay. Naqvi and Abbas vowed to adhere to the agreement chalked out by Rahat. “We are ready to withdraw candidates if Agha sahab asks for it,” said the former.

“The formula tabled by Agha sahab is acceptable to us,” said Abbas. Both parties had initially pitted candidates against each other in various constituencies which could have led to a division of their vote bank.

When approached for a comment, PPP regional coordinator Justice Jafar Shah denied forming an alliance with the aforementioned. “I am not aware of any such development,” he told The Express Tribune.

The latest development is being seen as another attempt to counter the increasing influence of PML-N.  “I am surprised that all guns are directed towards us,” said the party’s regional chief Hafizur Rehman. “Instead of promoting interfaith harmony, the clerics are fostering communalism on sectarian grounds,” he said, talking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2015.