February 03, 2007	Saturday	Muharram 14, 1428

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LAHORE, Feb 2: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s ailment may delay the meeting of the alliance’s supreme council scheduled for Sunday and the MMA may find it difficult to decide if its legislators would attend the National Assembly session beginning on Feb 6.

In case the council did not meet before Feb 6, the Jamaat-i-Islami MNAs would not attend the session, MMA chief Qazi Husain Ahmed told Dawn on Friday, adding that the only legislator of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan would also stand by the decision.

The council was to discuss Qazi Husain’s proposal that all MMA legislators should resign and launch a strong movement to dislodge President Pervez Musharraf before the elections.However, the situation changed when Maulana Fazl underwent angioplasty in a hospital here on Thursday.

He will need complete rest for several days before being able to resume stressful political activities.

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam led by Maulana Fazl is against the idea of resignation, saying that such a step may pave the way for another martial law.

Qazi Husain said the JI legislators would follow any decision taken by the alliance’s leadership.

He said the JUP had assured him that its MNA would stand by the Jamaat legislators.

“We don’t want to break or weaken the MMA,” he said.

He indicated that the heads of the MMA parties could meet before the supreme council meeting to take decisions on important issues.

When it was pointed out that the MMA legislators were reportedly drawing their salaries and allowances despite his assertions to the contrary, the MMA president said the Jamaat lawmakers were not doing so.

He said that standing committees were a forum for making money and no JI legislator had attended any meeting of any committee after he had given the call.

However, he said he could not say the same thing about the lawmakers belonging to other parties of the MMA.

As for the salaries, he said they could have been deposited in the legislators’ accounts but they had not been drawn by the Jamaat MPs.

He said he had donated his salary of six months for the victims of the Oct 8, 2005, earthquake in Azad Kashmir and that of another six months to Al Khidmat Foundation.

Replying to a question, he said the MMA was united and its components would contest the elections from the same platform.

He said he would step down as head of the alliance if any other leader came forward to shoulder the responsibility.

Qazi Husain has completed his two-year term as president of the alliance.