LAHORE, Nov 20: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal on Monday remained locked in a bitter dispute as PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain spurned the religious alliance’s demand for an immediate withdrawal of the Protection of Women’s Rights Bill from parliament as an essential pre-condition for negotiations.

The bill, already adopted by the National Assembly, is expected to be approved by the Senate in a session due to begin in Islamabad on Tuesday. Given the president’s stated partiality for the bill, there is little doubt that he will readily sign it into law – a requirement under Article 75 of the 1973 constitution.

Chaudhry Shujaat told Dawn that while he would be willing to go the extra mile for talks with the MMA, the government’s ‘flexibility’ should not be misconstrued as its weakness.

Earlier, MMA deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, who announced his resignation from the National Assembly on November 16 in protest against the passage of the Protection of Women’s Rights Bill, said the religious alliance would hold talks with the government only if the bill was taken back.

The demand drew a curt and terse remark from Chaudhry Shujaat: “The (legislative) process already set in motion cannot be stopped."

He warned that if the country plunged into a crisis because of the religious alliance’s unyielding position on the bill, the MMA would have only itself to blame.

He said he believed in his heart of hearts that MMA legislators would not carry out their threat to resign from the National Assembly, their political posturing notwithstanding. He added that if MMA lawmakers did indeed resign from the National Assembly, the government would adopt ‘the most suitable course of action’.

In reply to a question about MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s assertion that the religious alliance would not allow the enforcement of the bill in the NWFP and Balochistan, Chaudhry Shujaat said that if the National Assembly’s authority was challenged, the dissolution of the two provincial assemblies could not be ruled out.However, he hastened to add that such a step would be taken only as a last resort.

Ahmed Hassan adds from Islamabad: Minister of State for Information Tariq Azim told Dawn that the government was ready to hold by-elections if Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal legislators resign from the National Assembly.

He noted that the bill had caused a rift in the MMA, with some members determined to resign from the National Assembly in protest against the passage of the Protection of Women Rights Bill and the others equally determined to hold on to their seats as long as they could.

He said that even if the MMA resigned from parliament en bloc, the government would not think twice about holding by-polls on the seats vacated by MMA lawmakers.

He said meeting the MMA demand for talks – withdrawal of the bill from parliament – was out of the question.

Mr Azim, who is information secretary of the ruling PML, said: “It is the MMA’s moral and legal duty to accept the verdict of the National Assembly. It should desist from politicising the issue.”

He made it clear that PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s announcement of holding talks with the MMA should not be regarded as the government’s willingness to accept the condition of the religious alliance.