LAHORE, Oct 14: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy on Saturday invited the six-party MMA to join the ARD to launch an effective movement against the government.

ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim while talking to Dawn from London, where Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif would meet on Oct 19, rejected the MMA’s proposal for a grand alliance comprising all opposition parties, which was also being backed by the PML-N.

He said that it was a plan prepared by the religious alliance to “bury the ARD for good”.

Mr Fahim said the MMA also wanted to take control of all opposition parties and then strike a deal with the government, as it did at the time of adoption of the controversial 17th amendment.

The ARD, he said, would not allow anyone to use it for its own interests. “They want to fool us,” he said of the MMA’s insistence that there was a need for a grand opposition alliance to throw the present rulers out.

MMA president Qazi Husain Ahmed had said recently in case the PPP resisted the idea of a grand alliance, the coalition of religious parties would try to form a new alliance, excluding the party of Ms Bhutto.

Mr Fahim said the ARD, PONM, PTI and ANP were already jointly struggling against rulers and the formation of a new grand alliance would bring about little change.