PESHAWAR: Three of the major political parties, including Pakistan People`s Party, Awami National Party and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F),are likely to form an alliance for the forthcoming local government (LG) elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Insiders in these parties said that leaders of these opposition parties were trying to form a strong anti-government alliance across the province to give tough time to the ruling coalition, but they faced difficulties in some districts.

They said that the PPP`s opinion was quite different from the other two parties as it was also in favour of talks with the coalition partners inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa government, but the JUI and ANP were opposed to the idea.

It was learnt that every party was trying to demand the key seats like that of district nazim in the areas where they had reasonable vote bank, but this issue was yet to be finalised.

The workers of PPP and ANP, the sources said, might resist the alliance in some areas due to their mistrust in the previous coalition government in the province. The initial report will be finalised on Jan 2 in this connection.

`The PPP has replaced its provincial president as he had opposed alliance with the ANP against the will of Asif Ali Zardari,` a PPP leader said and added that now the PPP had changed its stance on alliance other parties.

When contacted, JUI-F provincial spokesman Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan, however, said on Sunday that each of the three parties had formed five-member committees and held two meetings with rest of the parties to discuss the basis for the possible alliance.

The JUrs committee, he said, included Haji Ghulam Ali, Abdul Jalil Jan, Qari Rafiq Shah and Asif Iqbal Daudzai.

`We will sit with leaders of the other two parties on Jan 2 in Peshawar to discuss some important points, share proposals and give reports to our respective parties for further action,` Maulana Jan said.

ANP provincial spokesman Mian Iftikhar Hussain told Dawn that efforts were being made to form alliance and two meetings had already been held in this connection, but it needed thorough discussion.

`Our priority is to bring the opposition parties closer because the ruling parties have their own priorities,` Mr Hussain said and added that he had been assigned the duty to lead the ANP committee in the dialogue with other parties.

Mr Hussain said that overall alliance for all the districts was not possible because every party had different position in the districts and eventually the district level organisations of each party would have to decide the future line of action, but even then the provincial level committee would have to monitor the districts.

`We do not want to repeat mistakes. We will try to bring the workers of the allies closer so that they will not issue statements against each others to avoid confusion and mistrust,` he said.

He said that initial meetings were very successful because every party wanted to form alliance for the LG elections so as to get maximum seats in each district.

PPP Peshawar city president Zulfiqar Afghani said that the discussion with opposition parties had been initiated following a policy of the party`s central leadership, but it was also ready to talk to Jamaat-i-Islami and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in this regard.

`Our doors are open for all and we will see our own priorities. PPP district level organisations have been empowered to talk to relevant parties for alliance because situation in each district is different,` Mr Afghani said.