KOZHIKODE: Striking a different note on the UDF-Welfare Party election understanding, IUML leader M K Muneer, MLA, said his party can never compromise with the ideology of the Jama’at-e-Islami, the parent organisation of the Welfare Party.
Speaking to a Malayalam TV channel, Muneer said he has no hesitation in declaring even in the time of election campaign that there are fundamental differences with the Jama’at. “We have spoken and written against the Jama’at and we or they (the Jama’at) do not denounce what we said,” he said.
It may be recalled that the UDF has struck ‘local-level’ understanding with the Welfare Party in the ensuing local body elections. IUML state president Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal himself has attested the understanding with the Welfare Party.
Muneer said the Welfare Party is supporting the UDF in certain places and that it cannot be construed as a political alliance. The CPM, which accepted the support of the Jama’at, is indulging in a campaign completely forgetting the past, he said. “The UDF didn’t do anything that the CPM did in the past. We have a strong approach to the Jama’at,” he said.
Muneer’s remarks came at a time when the IUML-Jama’at relationship developed into a full-fledged alliance at least in some constituencies.