ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy are expected to make their first formal contact on Tuesday to workout a formula for cooperating with each other in the forthcoming anti-Musharraf campaign
which the two alliances are launching separately.
The MMA has announced that it will start its movement from Karachi where it will hold a public rally on Friday while the ARD has planned to stage its first protest rally in Peshawar on December 6.
MMA's deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch told newsmen in Islamabad on Monday that the religious alliance would invite the ARD leadership to its rally in Karachi. It would also be willing to participate in the rally the ARD planned to hold in Peshawar, he said.
Mr Baloch said: "We welcome the ARD's protest rally in Peshawar and we will extend our cooperation in making the rally a success." Responding to a question about the recent meeting between Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Mr Baloch said there were no difference of opinion in the alliance over the meeting between the two leaders.
He dismissed reports which claimed that there were differences between the Jamaat-i-Islami and the JUI-F, two major components of the MMA, on the question of having a dialogue with the government.
Mr Baloch said that a meeting of the MMA supreme council to be held in Karachi on Wednesday would decide whether Maulana Fazlur Rahman and NWFP chief minister Durrani should attend the National Security Council (NSC) meeting on November 25.
Meanwhile sources privy to the religious alliance have indicated that the MMA may allow NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani to attend the NSC meeting but ask Maulana Fazlur Rahman to boycott it.
It was also said that the top leaders of the MMA - Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rahman - had different views over the question of attending the NSC meeting.
