QUETTA, May 27: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has claimed that his party can emerge as the largest group in the National Assembly if fair and transparent elections are held in the country but alleged that establishment is the main hurdle in its way.

Addressing the concluding session of a conference organised by his party in Kalat on Sunday, he said JUI-F was a major party having units throughout the country but the establishment was against it.

He said the country’s problems could be solved by enforcing Islamic injunctions.

He said an `unfair attitude’ by the establishment had forced Baloch youths to take up arms and go to the mountains, adding the establishment would have to change its policy to bring normality to Balochistan.

Maulana Fazl said the JUI-F was against the reopening of Nato supply routes to Afghanistan in violation of parliament’s resolution. He said the government can not allow the supplies through an administrative order and it must take a decision in accordance with the recommendations of parliament.

He criticised promotion of western values in society and vowed to resist “slavery of the United States”.

The JUI-F chief said Kalat had joined Pakistan in the hope that Islamic laws would be implemented in the country but rulers over the past six decades had disappointed the people of the area. He said the JUI-F through a political process had weakened the influence of sardars, nawabs, feudals and capitalists in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but wrong policies of the establishment had pushed the youths towards militancy.

Maulana Fazl demanded reduction in armed forces’ expenditure and claimed that their daily expenses were equal to the annual spending on education and health. “We are not against grant of funds to the armed forces but our aim should be to provide facilities to people in the education and health sectors.”

The maulana said a conspiracy had been hatched to sabotage the unity of religious parties and it was the responsibility of their leadership to frustrate the design.