ISLAMABAD Jan 15: Heads of the parties in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) were likely to meet in a few days to hammer out differences that were endangering the existence of the religious alliance, sources told Dawn on Monday.

According to the sources, the alliance’s supreme council meeting scheduled for January 11 was cancelled all of a sudden, ostensibly owing to the absence from the country of its secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The fact, however, was that the alliance leadership thought that such a meeting without first reaching consensus on the resignation issue might lead to the breaking up of the alliance.

The MMA component party heads are poles apart on the proposed anti-government movement and they are expected to narrow down these differences in the said meeting too.

“Differences on some vital issues exist between the alliance leadership which need to be redressed before going for the extended meeting,” a source in the alliance confided to Dawn.

When asked about the reasons for the postponement of the supreme council meeting, Maulana Fazlur Rahman told Dawn that he was unaware of it, neither he was aware of such a meeting when he was on Hajj pilgrimage.

About the anti-Musharraf movement, the Maulana said he would prefer to tell the alliance leadership to prepare themselves for the coming elections instead of launching a movement at this point of time.

“It is not the time to toe the policy of agitation. It is the time that the opposition parties work together to gain electoral triumph through cooperation to oust the military-led regime.”

He was non-committal when asked if the MMA supreme council would take a decision on resigning from the National Assembly, but said the alliance legislators would definitely participate in the upcoming session of the lower house.

The MMA supreme council meeting held soon after the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti had decided that instead of resigning from the assembly for the cause of Baloch nationalism, they should resign en bloc if the Women Protection Bill was passed by the parliament.

These differences crept in the alliance when Jamaat-i-Islami tried to impose a decision on resigning its members from the National Assembly in protest against the passage of the women bill by the parliament.

Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who has received an invitation from former prime minister and PML (N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif for participating in the proposed multi-party conference in London, said he might convene his party meeting and might also consider the MMA meeting to take a decision whether or not to participate in the conference.

“We need to understand that there is a need for seeking people’s support for the re-election and not agitation at this stage.”