LAHORE, July 20: Despite repeated denials by the PPP high-ups, former governor Khwaja Tariq Rahim has reportedly told Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch that Ms Benazir Bhutto may step down as party chairperson.

Mr Baloch quoted Mr Rahim, who recently met Ms Bhutto in the UAE, as saying during an informal meeting that the PPP life chairperson would vacate the post for her confidant from Sindh and party’s senior vice-president Makhdoom Amin Faheem.

Mr Rahim had met the Jamaat leader to discuss electoral cooperation between the PPP and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

Mr Rahim claims to have direct contacts with Ms Bhutto despite his departure from the PPP in 1996 when the then president Farooq Leghari had sacked her administration.

Mr Baloch, who is the MMA coordination committee chief, said here on Saturday that he had also received a message from PPP secretary general Raza Rabbani for discussing electoral adjustments, while MMA general secretary Maulana Fazlur Rahman had also talked to Asif Zardari, the jailed spouse of Ms Bhutto, in Attock and the latter had given a positive response.

The PML(QA) and PML(N) were also contacting them in this regard, said Mr Baloch.

But, he said the former did not seem serious on the issue as it was not forming a committee, though promised many times, to hold formal and fruitful talks.

The last such contact was made on Saturday when a high-powered MMA team comprising Liaquat Baloch, Hafiz Husain Ahmad, Pir Ijaz Hashmi and Hafiz Riaz Durrani called on PML(QA) central vice-president Khurshid Kasuri.

Mr Kasuri, during the meeting, denied that the delay in formalizing the process was due to some sort of pressure from the establishment.

The unification issue was also creating hurdles in finalizing the shape of these contacts, Mr Baloch said, adding, some PML quarters had also claimed that former finance minister Sartaj Aziz would be made president and former Balochistan chief minister Zafarullah Jamali general secretary of the unified PML.

Admitting that MMA constituents were inclined to strike electoral alliance/adjustments with the PML(N), he said one of the two Leagues would be eliminated in the forthcoming polls. He feared that the PML(N) was facing more risk keeping in view daily defections of its influential leaders to the PML(QA).

The MMA would bargain with both the Leagues on equality basis for various opinion polls had showed that the six-party alliance of religious parties enjoyed at least 17 per cent following across the country, he claimed.

However, he admitted that the following was scattered.

“The MMA holds a good position in the NWFP and Balochistan, while there are at least 80 constituencies in Sindh and the Punjab where it has 15,000-30,000 votes,” Mr Baloch said.

To mobilize this scattered vote bank, he said a joint Karachi-Peshawar tour of the central MMA leadership would be arranged, while conventions had also been planned at Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Quetta and Karachi on July 23, 25, 27 and 30, respectively, for the purpose.