HYDERABAD, March 9: Senior leaders of People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Friday described what they called "Mullahism" as the biggest threat to the country and dismissed reports of the party’s possible deal with Pervez Musharraf government.

PPP MNAs Syed Khurshid Shah and Syed Naveed Qamar said at a luncheon hosted in their honour by secretary of Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF) that people had forgot MMA-military pact, which took the shape of 17th amendment.

Mr Khurshid Shah said that "Actually it is a mullah-military alliance and not Pervez Musharraf-PPP alliance and I assure you that we are not going to bargain in future with Musharraf for seeking power."

He admitted the party had been in talks with the government but added that if they had struck a deal the party would have had its speaker of National Assembly and prime minister in 2002.

He termed religious parties the biggest threat to the country and said that Ms. Benazir Bhutto had made it clear that she did not want to get her image tarnished by siding with them.

"Certainly people ask us what we did in our governments but they are reminded that except for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led government, no other government completed its tenure," he said.

Mr Naveed Qamar deplored the gap between Sindhi intelligentsia and political parties and shrugged off criticism against his party saying political parties had to adopt various strategies for their survival after successive military coups and dismissal of elected regimes.

He said that progressive people in Sindh supported creation of a Siraiki province but opposed division of Sindh. "It’s a very sensitive area and you should tread it with utmost caution. It can not be decided with just an stroke of pen,” he argued.

He said that sales tax was being collected by the centre which retained a major chunk and then disbursed the remaining part among provinces. The provinces were told that they lacked infrastructure for collection while on the contrary the CBR's own capacity was debatable, he said.