Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmed and former deputy secretary general Hafiz Hussain Ahmed are likely to continue their ‘boycott’ of the National Assembly, despite the MMA general council’s decision otherwise, sources privy to the development told Daily Times. “Both leaders were present in the city recently but they did not attend the NA session though the general council had decided in favour of MMA members’ attending the proceedings after withdrawal of the earlier decision to resign en-bloc from the NA,” the sources said. “Qazi being the president of the MMA was not willing to attend the NA session because he was a staunch supporter of resignations, but he accepted the majority decision of the alliance’s general council just to keep the MMA intact,” the sources said. They said that Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, who still holds the portfolio of deputy parliamentary leader of the MMA, was also not willing to attend the session because he had publicly announced his resignation after the passage of the Women’s Protection Bill (WPB).
The sources said that a cold war between the two top leaders of the MMA – Qazi and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the alliance’s secretary general – was still on over the issue of resignations. A top Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader said that it would be very hard for Qazi to attend the NA session because he believed that the MMA had made a public commitment to resign from the NA if the WPB were passed.
On the other hand, the sources said that problems between Hafiz and the Balochistan chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) still persisted, despite reports that the issues were settled on during a meeting between Maulana Fazl and Hafiz in the presence of Qari Hanif Jullandhry at Mina during Haj.
The confrontation began after Hafiz announced his resignation, which the Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani-led Balochistan chapter of the JUI-F considered a violation of the party discipline. The central executive committee of the party, in a hurriedly called meeting, decided to issue a show cause notice to Hafiz. The sources said that the issue was apparently resolved during the Mina meeting, but the Balochistan JUI-F did not support Hafiz in the MMAÂ’s internal elections and replaced him with Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri as deputy secretary general of the alliance.