LAHORE, Feb 25: Two major components of six-party religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, have developed differences over the fielding of a candidate for general seat of Senate from Islamabad.

Both the Jamaat-i-Islami and the JUI (Fazlur Rahman) have put up their nominees and are not ready for any compromise on the issue.

The Jamaat has fielded its Naib Amir Prof Ghafoor while the JUI-F has put up Maulana Abdur Rauf.

JUI officials claim that the Jamaat has not consulted other components of the alliance and has taken unilateral decision of putting up its candidate for the Islamabad seat.

“JI leaders had told us that they would introduce a woman for the seat but later they gave the name of Prof Ghafoor, informing MMA general secretary Maulana Fazlur Rahman that they had also held positive talks with the PML-Q for its support for the professor,” they said.

The issue was taken up at the last summit meeting of the MMA held in Islamabad in the last week of January and despite intervention by alliance chairman Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, the JI did not give in, they added.

“When the Jamaat rejected bargain offers on technocrat’s seat, we decided to approach other parties to muster their support for our candidate,” they said, admitting “we believe that the step will result in the defeat of nominees of both the MMA constituents.”

Earlier, both the parties had differed over NA-118 before Oct 10 elections. Jamaat’s Hafiz Salman Butt had bagged the seat as an independent with the support of the PML-N.

During the Jan 15 bypolls, the JUI had again alleged that the JI was not taking other components of the MMA into confidence over fielding of candidates and holding of talks with other parties for fielding joint nominees.