PESHAWAR, June 18: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman here on Wednesday said President Pervez Musharraf had become a party against the MMA government in the NWFP and was trying to make Shariat Bill controversial.

Speaking at a meeting of ulema from across the country here at the Frontier House, Maulana Rehman said great responsibilities were attached to the post of president, but Gen Musharraf instead of realising that tried to defame the MMA government by raising non-issues, says a press release.

He said: “Gen Musharraf should have dispelled the wrong impression about the MMA government abroad. But instead of fulfilling that responsibility, he tried to tarnish the image of the MMA government.”

Reiterating his stand on the Legal Framework Order (LFO), the MMA leader said: “We can agree with the government on about 22 points in the LFO and are having differences on only six or seven controversial points, but the government has not been accepting our stand on those points.”

The Maulana said that if the government accepted their demands and a consensus developed on the LFO, the government having MMA’s support could get the law approved from parliament.

He said sporting a beard or observing purdah were not basic issues, but the federal government had been making them issues so as to discourage international donors including the World Bank and other institutions.

The World Bank, he said, had praised the policies of the provincial government, but the federal government had now been trying to discourage donors so as to delay assistance to the NWFP.

The Maulana questioned what message Gen Musharraf was trying to convey to the West by constantly dubbing the NWFP government as the government of Taliban. The so-called secular and liberal forces had been displaying narrow mindedness after the unanimous passage of the Shariah Bill in the NWFP assembly.