November 5, 2003	Wednesday	Ramazan 9, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 4: Federal Minister for Communications Ahmed Ali resigned from the cabinet on the instructions of Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain, sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

They said the minister had submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, but it had not been accepted yet and Mr Ali had been asked to continue.

Sources claimed that Mr Ali had resigned due to his differences with some senior officials of the armed forces serving in the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and the National Highways Authority.

The minister was unhappy with the performance of some officials in the two organizations and wanted to remove them. However, sources said, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief stopped the minister from taking any action and advised him to tender his resignation instead.

Another source in the party, however, said the minister had no differences with any official, but had tendered the resignation to change MQM’s representation in the cabinet. The slot vacated by him is expected to be given to another Muttahida Qaumi Movement MNA nominated by Mr Altaf Hussain who has already appointed Dr Farooq Sattar as parliamentary party leader of the MQM in place of Mr Safwanullah, the minister for housing.

The MQM MNAs neither confirmed nor denied the reports about Mr Ali’s resignation.

Mr Ali was contacted twice and on both occasions his response was a crisp: “No comments”.

Dr Sattar said he would comment on the issue when it would become public.

Mr Safwanullah said he could not say anything on policy matters as he was no longer the parliamentary leader of the party.

Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed said Mr Ali had resigned due to some “personal reasons”. He said the prime minister had not accepted the resignation and asked the minister to continue.