Tehreek-i-Labbaik: widening internal rifts

The Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), being touted as the political face of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah, has begun disowning the faction led by Dr Ashraf Asif Jalali. The fact came to the fore when TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who had led the Islamabad protest, disowned the Lahore sit-in in a TV talk show on November 30.

Pir Afzal Qadri from Gujranwala, another central character of the Faizabad sit-in, has already formed his own faction of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik.

The sit-in by the Jalali-led Tehreek-i-Labbaik outside the Punjab Assembly building on The Mall entered the sixth day on November 30. The Lahore sit-in was started by the Jalali-led Tehreek-i-Labbaik following reports of police operation against the participants of the Faizabad sit-in on November 25 morning.

The Islamabad episode culminated in an agreement brokered by the army between the federal government and the protesters led by fiery cleric Khadim Rizvi. But ironically, their colleagues in Lahore led by Dr Asif Jalali didn’t accept that in the first hint of grouping within the outfit.

Dr Jalali told the media that “qisas for 70 martyrs of Khatm-i-Nubuwat was not incorporated in it”. He also sought the resignation of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah for allegedly speaking for the Ahmadi community’s rights in a TV show.

Insiders say that besides making other offers, the PML-N government in Punjab has also promised to politically accommodate the Tehreek-i-Labbaik by conceding a certain number of seats to it in the coming general elections.

Already heading Tehreek Siraat-i-Mustaqeem, Dr Jalali claims that he had formed Tehreek-i-Labbaik the day Mumtaz Qadri — a police guard who killed former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer — was hanged on Feb 29 last year while Khadim Rizvi headed the TLP formed in Karachi in August 2015.

The Tehreek-i-Labbaik was little known until it took part in the by-poll for National Assembly constituency NA-120 (Lahore-III) against former first lady Begum Kulsoom Nawaz. The seat had fallen vacant after former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.

To the astonishment of many, Tehreek candidate Sheikh Azhar Hussain Rizvi came third in the electoral race outnumbering the mainstream Pakistan Peoples Party and Jamaat-i-Islami by bagging over 7,000 votes, though there’s hardly any election activity of the outfit visible to the voters. Most of its election campaign remained confined to mosques mostly addressed by Khadim Rizvi with occasional motorcycle rallies in the constituency.

The outfit improved its tally further in the subsequent by-election in NA-4 (Peshawar), although the Barelvi school of thought the Tehreek represents does not enjoy as much following in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as in Punjab and elsewhere in the country.