HYDERABAD, June 24: The Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said on Sunday that Ms Benazir Bhutto was obstructing the formation of a grand alliance of opposition parties.

Mr Rehman said in his presidential address at the concluding session of a three-day meeting of the provincial council of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) at Madressah Kunzul Uloom in Matiari that on the one hand Ms. Bhutto was not prepared to sit with MMA leaders while on the other she was busy striking a deal with Musharraf and was even prepared to get him re-elected as president.

He said the PPP had helped Musharraf become strong because Ms Bhutto had a soft corner for him. People these days were discussing only one topic - whether Musharraf would get himself elected in uniform by the present assemblies or the next assemblies?

The country was in the grip of chaos and many rumours were circulating including dissolution of assemblies, holding of snap elections, imposition of emergency etc but the MMA was strongly opposed to the dissolution of assemblies before completion of their tenure.

Mr Rehman claimed that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had assured MMA that present assemblies would complete their tenure. He said that Islam preached peace, love, brotherhood and humanity and it was against barbarism, terrorism and bloodshed. America and its allies had raised the bogey of terrorism just to grab natural resources of Muslim countries, he said.

He warned that the Islamic world would foil the conspiracies of America and its allies, which were aimed at changing the geographical or ideological demography of Muslim Ummah.

He blamed America for being involved in terrorist activities in Muslim countries and said that MMA was prepared to launch a movement in cooperation with all the opposition parties to get rid of dictatorship and restore true democracy in the country.

He failed to understand the logic behind Ms Bhutto’s refusal to attend multi-party conference in the presence of MMA, he said and urged workers to prepare themselves for the upcoming elections.

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said that his party had evolved a strategy to foil conspiracies aimed at rigging general elections. The government was trying to find ways and means to hold engineered elections through its “enlightened moderation”.