MUZAFFARGARH, Oct 13: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) President Makhdoom Amin Fahim has requested ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan to convene an urgent meeting of the alliance at Islamabad.

Speaking to newsmen here on Sunday, the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) chief said Mr Fahim had telephoned him from Islamabad and discussed with him the prevailing political situation in the country.

According to APP, Nawabzada said the PPP president had also invited him to Lahore or Islamabad.

He said the concern of the US government over the success of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) was understood as the Bush government had adopted an anti-Islam policy, but the concern of the Indian government was astonishing in this regard as the BJP government was itself an extremist set-up.

Our Multan Correspondent adds: Rejecting the poll results, Mr Nasrullah said he was calling an emergency meeting of the alliance in Lahore in a couple of days to decide the future course of action in the face of, what he said, the most-rigged elections.

Speaking to Dawn by telephone from his Khangarh residence, the octogenarian said heads of all the major political parties like the PPP, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) had rejected the ‘fraudulent’ polls of Oct 10.

He claimed that neither the PPP nor the MMA would form a coalition government with the PML-QA because they could not back out from their stance against the presidential referendum held by Musharraf, and unconstitutional acts and amendments to the Constitution done by his regime.

The ARD chief said that on the other hand the PML-QA was a staunch supporter of Mr Musharraf, and added that the “parliament and the General can not go together”.

He said the ARD, MMA, lawyers and civil society organisations too had rejected the extra-constitutional steps of the regime at an all parties conference organised by him at Lahore sometimes ago. The looming anarchy was the only outcome of the Oct 10 election, he added.

Replying to a question, he attributed the unprecedented success of the religio-political parties in Balochistan and the NWFP to the situation in Afghanistan because, he said, the two provinces had been directly affected with what the US and its allies were doing in the war-torn country.