Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam was used like a tissue paper by PDM: former JUI-F leader

• Hafiz Hussain Ahmed asks Maulana Fazlur Rehman to help unite factions of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and hold intraparty elections.
• Ahmed says Fazlur Rehman should immediately join JUI Pakistan.
• Former JUI-F leader says recent politics has "harmed the ideological foundations" of JUI.

As internal fighting in the opposition's Pakistan Democratic Movement intensifies, former JUI-F leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed has alleged that the alliance used the Maulana Fazlur Rehman-led party like a “tissue paper”.

“PDM used Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) like a tissue paper,” said Ahmed, while speaking to the media after inaugurating the JUI secretariat in Peshawar. He was flanked by Maulana Muhammad Sherani.

Ahmed said that the PDM "is in tatters", referring to the war of words between PPP and PML-N that began with the issue of whether or not the position of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate should go to Yousaf Raza Gillani.

Read more: Sherani separates JUI-Pakistan from Fazlur Rehman's JUI-F

Speaking about the JUI, Ahmed called on Fazl to help unite the factions of the JUI under the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan banner and hold intraparty elections.

“Maulana Fazlur Rehman should immediately join JUI Pakistan,” said Ahmed.

Ahmed also claimed that JUI had tried stopping the Fazlur Rehman from taking part in the 2018 elections but the JUI-F chief decided to contest the elections on the advice of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.

The former MNA alleged that Fazlur Rehman was "busy saving his “reputation”, adding that the recent politics has "harmed the ideological foundations" of the JUI.

Sherani and Ahmed were among four leaders expelled last year from JUI-F for going against the party's decisions.

Following a meeting of the JUI-F in Lahore, Maulana Sherani, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, and Maulana Shuja-ul-Mulk were expelled from the party, a party spokesperson had said at the time.

Read more: JUI-F expels Maulana Sherani, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed over controversial statements

The spokesperson added that the statements and opinions of the expelled leaders will not be owned by the party, adding that they had been sent copies of the decision.

The development came after Maulana Sherani earlier said that the PDM has been set up for "personal gains," adding that Maulana Fazlur Rehman is himself "selected."

Sherani separates JUI-Pakistan from Fazlur Rehman's JUI-F

Following the expulsion, senior politician Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani had announced the separation of JUI-Pakistan from Maulana Fazlur Rehman's JUI-F.

"We have inherited the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan party from great leaders," said Maulana Sherani, a former chairperson of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), in a press conference in the federal capital.

"Fazlur Rehman formed his group called the JUI-F," he said, clarifying that neither he nor his followers were ever a part of the JUI-F or the faction created by Fazlur Rehman, who now also leads the Opposition parties' anti-government coalition PDM banner.

Read more: Another JUI-F leader quits, says party working 'against national interest'

"We have always been and will always remain members in accordance with the JUI's constitution," Sherani insisted.