ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: The Grand National Alliance, a grouping of Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and six-party National Alliance, and six-party religious parties alliance Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leaders demanded of the government on Friday to convene the National Assembly session without any delay.

In their first meeting, the top brass of the two sides — Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari and Maulana Fazlur Rehman — feared that further delay in the convening of the NA session would complicate the political situation.

A major achievement of the meeting was that the gap between the MMA and the Musharraf government would hopefully be bridged through the efforts of Shujaat, who has been assigned the job of establishing working relations between the major parliamentary groups and the government on the mechanism of transfer of power.

Briefing the newsmen after the meeting, leaders of both sides described the proceedings of the meeting as encouraging, positive and a step forward which would be continued on Saturday evening (after Taraveeh prayers).

Shujaat termed the meeting as encouraging as the irritants were discussed in it. He refuted the reports that his party was involved in any behind the scene talks with the People’s Party Parliamentarians on the formation of government.

He said the MMA factor could not be ignored as it had emerged as a political force in the Oct 10 elections.

Qazi, in his capacity as acting president of the MMA, said both sides held an in-depth discussion on the LFO and other contentious issues, including modalities of transfer of power, which were assigned to Shujaat by a four-party moot last week.

Responding to a query as to why the MMA was insisting on getting the premiership when it was placed at number three in the assembly, Qazi said: “It was not unusual in democratic societies for putting up candidates by the parties as last decision after all was to be taken on the floor of the house.”

He said: “We ask the government to summon the assembly session immediately and assure (the government) that we will reach at a consensus on the modalities of transfer of power” in the meantime.

Intervening, Shujaat clarified that his demand for the postponement of the NA session was not for indefinite period. Besides, he recalled, leaders of some other parties had also put forward this demand.

When questioned whether the MMA would show flexibility on the question of its prime ministerial candidate, Fazl said: “When the talks will go forward everything will be discussed and a solution found.”

Qazi said the government was trying to put blame on the politicians for incompetence but, he alleged, it had bad intentions in postponing and delaying the convening of the assembly session.

He said though no discussions were held on the formation of government, both sides agreed to discuss the issue among themselves before returning to Saturday’s meeting. He said: “We don’t want a bargaining on the question of prime minister and believe that it should be settled inside the assembly.”

Allaying the fear that the current political impasse had any similarity with the conditions of 1971, he said the situation was different and all the elected MPs were patriotic.

The GNA was represented by Chaudhry Shujaat, parliamentary leader of the PML(Q). Millat Party president and senior NA leader Farooq Leghari, MNA-elect Shaikh Rashid Ahmed and NA secretary general Mohammad Ali Durrani, were also present.

The MMA side comprised Qazi Hussain, Maulana Fazl, Liaquat Baloch, Hafiz Hussain, Ghafoor Haideri and Ejaz Hashmi.

Interestingly, MMA president Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, who was appointed by the central executive of the alliance as head of the negotiating team last time, had reportedly left for Karachi to attend to his preaching mission while three other component party heads — Prof Sajid Mir, Allama Sajid Ali Naqvi and Maulana Samiul Haq — were also not present.