PESHAWAR, Aug 28: PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto has intervened to resolve a controversy between rival groups over the party’s alliance with the JUI-F for the office of the district nazim Peshawar, party leaders said.

Ms Bhutto telephoned PPPP parliamentary leader Abdul Akbar Khan on Saturday and inquired about the row that has hit the party in Peshawar following its decision to endorse the JUI-F nominee Haji Ghulam Ali for the post.

“She called and asked about the situation. I told her about the great resentment among the party workers over the decision to back a JUI-F candidate for the nazim slot,” Mr Akbar told Dawn.

“Our workers are upset. Nowhere in the world a majority follows a minority. The agreement is ridiculous. Our workers will never accept it,” he said.

The Awam Dost panel of the PPPP came runners up with 20 of its union council nazims after the ANP’s Watan Dost which won 27 seats out of the total 92 union council nazims. The JUI-F got only six union council nazims. The PPPP entered into an agreement with the JUI-F after its talks with the ANP and the Jamaat-i-Islami failed.

Mr Akbar said the committee that had signed the agreement with the JUI-F had no powers to do so. “It was not authorized to make any decision,” he maintained.

There is also criticism over the JUI-F’s decision to rope in the PPP-Sherpao which could win only two union council nazims in Peshawar.

PPPP Peshawar district president Israr Khan said that party’s senior leader Naheed Khan had contacted him and he had conveyed to her his disagreement over the alliance with the JUI-F.

“This is a sell-out,” Israr Khan, who was a member of the committee which negotiated the agreement with the JUI-F, told Dawn.

Mr Israr said he had walked out of the meeting to protest over the terms of the agreement. “All along, our party chairperson has been saying that we would not have alliance with fundamentalists. But here we are, signing an agreement with them. This is unacceptable for our workers who have worked hard. We are in majority, yet we are offering the district nazim slot to the JUI-F on a silver platter. This is illogical,” he maintained.

MPA Syed Zahir Shah, another member of the committee, however, defended the alliance with the JUI-F.

“There are people who are trying to create confusion. But we are very clear,” said Mr Shah, who heads the party in the Peshawar division.

He was critical of the ANP, which, he said, had betrayed them by negotiating a secret deal with Jamaat-i-Ismali while agreeing to sit again with the PPPP to work out an agreement over the next Peshawar district government.

Mr Shah maintained that the party had no option but to enter into an alliance with the JUI-F despite the latter being in minority in the district, after the other two major groups - the ANP and JI - had forged an agreement.

FAZL SHERPAO MEETING: Earlier leader of opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao held a meeting here on Sunday in an apparent move to forge alliance for formation of district governments in the province.