Differences appear to have widened between two major opposition parties as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Secretary General Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri on Thursday said his party would not accept Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan as opposition leader in the National Assembly. Talking to the Okara Press Club over telephone, the senator said Chaudhry Nisar could be a leader of the PML-N but not of the opposition. He said Nisar became chairman of Public Accounts Committee with the support of the PPP and played the role of friendly opposition and thus had no right to criticize the JUI-F.
He said just to get the post of leader of the opposition in the Senate, Nisar did not allow PML-N senators to contest election for chairman and deputy chairman of Senate despite having the support of the JUI-F. Haideri said the JUI-F accepted PML-N as a major opposition party in the Senate, but they did not have the courtesy to welcome them. “In the past, the PML-N deceived the APDM that included Imran Khan, Mahmood Khan Achzai and Qazi Hussain Ahmed and now Nisar, under an agenda, is dividing the opposition in the Senate by criticising the JUI-F,” he said. Haideri said Nisar was betraying the Sharif brothers by meeting some people in the “dark of night”, while in broad day light, he spoke against them. He said he had accepted an invitation given by Qazi Hussain Ahmed to participate in religious parties’ meeting to be held on May 21 in Islamabad. To a question, he said that there was no possibility of the revival of MMA.
