MULTAN, July 17: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has chalked out a plan to mobilize its workers to face the challenge of forthcoming general elections.

Talking to newsmen here on Wednesday, MMA vice-president and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (S) chief Maulana Samiul Haq said the MMA was organizing its conventions in various cities across the country from July 23.

He said the first convention would be held in Peshawar on July 23, in Rawalpindi on July 25, in Quetta on July 27 and in Karachi on July 31. The MMA would also organize a ‘protect seminaries’ conference in Islamabad on July 24 at Lal Masjid.

The government, he said, wanted to take control of the religious institutions but the MMA would not allow it to usurp the independence of seminaries.

The Maulana opined that the NRB-sponsored constitutional package was a negation of the democracy and parliament would become crippled if the ‘military-centred’ constitutional package was enforced.

The JUI-F central deputy secretary-general, Hafiz Husain Ahmed, said the federal parliamentary system was the last hope of smaller provinces in the country. He said the proposed constitutional package would distort the federal parliamentary character of the 1973 Constitution.