The six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has split down the middle over the issue of resignations, with three of its components refusing to quit the National Assembly in protest at the WomenÂ’s Protection Bill.The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl), JUI (Senior) led by Pir Abdur Rahim Naqshbandi, and Jamiat Ahle Hadith led by Professor Sajid Mir said at an MMA parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday that they would not resign from the National Assembly.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MMA president and chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, is the biggest proponent of resignations. He said at the meeting that the MMA should resign because that was what the Supreme Council had decided. He said it was right to resign because parliament had just passed an “un-Islamic” bill. However, other MMA leaders disagreed. “The decision to resign from the assembly was not taken unanimously. It was a decision which was imposed by the alliance president (Qazi) on all of us,” the sources quoted Mir as saying. “We should not leave the parliament open for PPPP by resigning,” he added.