The main event will be in Rawalpindi where JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will address the gathering
A photo of TTAP chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai. SCREEN GRAB
LAHORE:
Fissures in the opposition camp have deepened ahead of the planned February 8 protests, as Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Aeen Pakistan (TTAP) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) traded blame for the lack of coordination on Friday, while both sides insisted an ever-widening alliance could be possible.
JUI-F spokesperson said that TTAP should have taken JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman into confidence before announcing its activity on February 8 if it really wanted to keep the party by its side.
He shifted the blame for the split in the opposition benches to the PTI, while maintaining that an alliance between the two sides in the near future remained a possibility.
TTAP, on the other hand, claimed that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, despite being on the opposition benches, was not serious about joining a multi-party opposition alliance, citing the negative sum political equation between him and the PTI, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Recently, both sides announced their protest plans for February 8, with JUI-F’s nationwide protest deliberately designed to avoid clashing with TTAP’s activities.
JUI-F spokesperson Maulana Aslam Ghouri said JUI-F, under the banner Awan Nai Medan, will hold protests across the country, one in each provincial capital of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, while in Sindh, protests will also be held at the district headquarters.
The main event will be in Rawalpindi where JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will address the gathering.
Asked if the party would hold marches or rallies, he said they would only organize marches as holding rallies would disrupt TTAP’s nationwide wheel stop.
Asked why the JUI-F did not simply join the TTAP for a bigger impact, he said the party’s doors were always open but the TTAP had never shown genuine intentions. From its first meeting to the recent announcement of the plan on February 8, he said, the TTAP did not take the JUI-F chief into confidence.
He said that while both sides broadly agree on the issue of massive fraud in the 2024 elections, the JUI-F believes that the PTI must also acknowledge that the 2018 elections were rigged in the same way and that the fraud also took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2024.
He said these were the two primary points of contention between the JUI-F and the TTAP.
Asked about any recent interaction between TTAP chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, he said the JUI-F chief was currently in South Africa and would return on February 6.
Former Sindh Governor and TTAP member Muhammad Zubair said the Maulana was not interested in joining a joint opposition movement.
He claimed that the Maulana was fully aware that the success of any opposition movement would bring back Imran Khan and the PTI, a party which, he said, had weakened his political ambitions in KP.
Zubair dismissed the JUI-F’s claims that the 2018 and 2024 elections, as well as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa polls, were rigged, calling them far from reality. He said massive and blatant fraud in 2024 was unparalleled and claimed that the KP results were kept untainted only to give the election some global credibility.
