QUETTA: Serious differences have emerged between Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and former Islamic Ideological Council chairman and senior party leader Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani, with the latter levelling serious allegation against the party chief and rejecting the politics of the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

Former MNA and senator Sherani, who also served as provincial chief of the JUI-F, is the second important leader after Hafiz Hussain Ahmed from Balochistan who was opposing the policies of Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Party sources said the rift deepened during the JUI-F elections that Maulana Sherani had rejected while criticising the party leadership for turning it into a ‘family party’.

With such a policy there was no space for betterment, he said, claiming that he had always been against one-man rule in the JUI and its transformation into a hereditary party.

Maulana Sherani calls party chief ‘selected’, rejects PDM politics

Maulana Sherani, who had been elected to the National Assembly and Senate on a JUI-F ticket in the past, said: “Maulana Fazlur Rehman himself is selected. How can he taunt and call Imran Khan and others selected?”

He said he was opposing the JUI-F chief because of his lies.

Maulana Sherani is reportedly in contact with Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and has asked the party workers to join hands with him and leave the factions named after individuals.

Hafiz Hussain was considered very close to Maulana Fazl when he was made central spokesman for the JUI-F. But he was removed from the position after he started criticising some policies of the leadership when Maulana Fazl decided to join hands with the opposition parties and became PDM convener.

Maulana Sherani, too, rejected the PDM politics, terming it an unnatural alliance of the opposition parties.

He said that every member party in the 11-party alliance had its own interests. Being an unnatural alliance, he said, it would soon vanish.

They did not have any vision as everyone in the opposition PDM was running to get to the chair, he alleged.

Meanwhile, the sources in the JUI-F said that Maulana Fazlur Rehman has convened an important meeting of the party on Dec 24 to discuss the allega-tions and the issue related to Maulana Sherani.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2020