PESHAWAR: MMA may remove deputy speaker: Defeat in Senate polls
By Mohammed Riaz
PESHAWAR, March 10: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government, which suffered a serious setback in the Senate election, has requisitioned an emergency session of the NWFP assembly on Saturday to take disciplinary action against what it called black sheep.
Soon after the election, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief and MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman summoned his party’s office-bearers and provincial ministers to Islamabad to discuss the defeat of MMA-nominees.
The JUI high command had constituted a three-member committee led by its provincial chief MNA Maulana Amanullah to ascertain the causes of the alliance’s failure to bag the expected Senate seats. Other members of the inquiry committee are MNAs Qari Fiyazur Rehman Alvi and Shujaul Mulk from Mardan.
NWFP assembly’s deputy speaker Ikramullah Khan Shahid, a lieutenant of Maulana Samiul Haq, has been holding the MMA leadership responsible for the setback.
“I have cast my vote on the call of my conscience. The six-party alliance has hoodwinked people. We are still lying to people who brought us to power,” he was quoted as saying in a TV programme.
Sources said the alliance, which expelled Senator Maulana Samiul Haq from its fold a few months ago for his pro-Islamabad stance, had decided to remove the deputy speaker through a no-confidence motion to be tabled on Saturday.
Mr Shahid has been a foremost member of the forward bloc, a 17-member dissident group of the MMA that emerged last December.
Sources said that Mr Shahid might be replaced by Amanat Ali Shah, who belongs to Mardan and is an active member of the JUI-F, or Malik Imran of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The MMA and its electoral allies — Awami National Party and People’s Party-Parliamentarians — failed to restrain some of their MPAs. These MPAs had refused to take an oath and voted according to their sweet will.
Some of the MPAs from D. I. Khan, Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda, Swat, Nowshera and Mansehra also ditched the MMA and the PPP candidates.
Some JUI dissidents said they were unaware of the credentials of Talha Mehmood, reportedly a relative of the late Maulana Asad Madni of Deoband School in India; Azam Swat, a green card holder; and Dr Shaheena Jameel, an independent candidate supported by the JUI. One of the dissidents said why these people had been allotted party tickets If they were not members of the JUI.
Political observers said the forward bloc had shattered the foundation of the MMA government in the NWFP and paved the way for a ‘change of guards’ in Peshawar.
