BAJAUR, Jan 14: Differences have cropped up between the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), two major components of the MMA, over the nomination of candidates for the sole Senate seat of Bajaur Agency.

Two tribal MNAs, Maulana Mohammad Sadiq of JUI and Sahibzada Haroonur Rashid of Jamaat, have started naming candidates on their own for the sole seat.

Sources said that as the two components could not agree on the nomination of a consensus candidate, therefore the alliance leaders were submitting papers of their inspirants, which had caused serious differences between the JUI and the Jamaat.

A JI leader told Dawn that the party had asked its three local leaders— Maulana Khurshid Ahmad, Khan Badshah and Mohammad Salim— to submit their nominations for the seat.

A JUI source said his party had given a go-ahead to its two leaders, Maulana Abdur Rashid and Maulana Zakirullah, to file papers.

The MMA sources said that a meeting of the JUI and the JI on Sunday night could not agree on any candidate for the forthcoming polls of the upper house of parliament, following which the two parties asked their leaders to file nominations for the seat.

The sources said that the MMA components had agreed on a formula that the Senate seat would go to the JUI while the Jamaat would get office of the agency Nazim, in case the local government elections were held in the tribal areas.

The sources are of the view that as holding of the local bodies elections in the tribal territory has almost become impossible in the near future, the two parties developed a row over the nomination of the consensus candidate for the sole Senate seat.