ISLAMABAD, March 9: Leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal on Thursday said that they were considering the option of resigning from parliament if their demand of formation of a national government was not met.

“All options, including resigning from the assemblies, are open for us if a caretaker set-up is not established,” ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim told reporters after an informal meeting of opposition leaders at Islamabad Club.

“Before resigning from the assemblies, we will go to the court of the people,” Mr Fahim said without setting any deadline for setting up of a caretaker government. He said the opposition wanted a government which should not succumb to any pressure from (intelligence) agencies or any other institution. He said the sole purpose of the caretaker or national government should be to hold free and fair elections.

MMA MNA from Karachi Mohammad Laeeque Khan said he and his colleagues had given their resignations to the alliance’s leadership and authorised it to submit those to the speaker whenever the time came to quit the assemblies.

He said the MMA members were prepared to resign from the assemblies and they would not hesitate in doing so when asked.

He said the opposition members would surprise the government by tendering resignations. He was of the view that there was no use of sitting in a powerless assembly where members could not even discuss the basic problems of people.

He said parliament had failed to come up to the expectations of people.

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Tehmina Daultana said that whenever the party’s chief Nawaz Sharif asked the members to resign from parliament, they would do it. She said the assembly had become a redundant institution.

Acting parliamentary leader of the PML-N Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, PML-N MNAs Khawaja Asif and Raja Nadir Pervez, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf, MMA MNA Liaqat Baloch, ARD parliamentary secretary Izhar Amrohvi and several other opposition members were present in the meeting, convened a day before Senate election to finalise a joint strategy.

Sources in the PPP said that it had been decided in the meeting that all the opposition members in the National Assembly would vote for the ARD candidate for the only general seat from Islamabad, B.A. Malik.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the steering committee of the opposition parties has been convened by its convener Iqbal Zafar Jhagra on Friday to finalise its recommendations for launching a forceful anti-government movement.