Sirajul Haq resigns as JI chief

ISLAMABAD: Siraj-ul-Haq has resigned from his position as the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious political party in Pakistan, after his party was almost routed in the general election 2024.

In a tweet, Haq said that “accepting responsibility for the defeat in the election, I have resigned from the leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami.”

A spokesperson for the Jamaat-e-Islami quoted Sirajul Haq as saying that he worked hard and made efforts, but he could not achieve the desired success in the 2024 elections. Haq praised the workers for their hard work and prayed that Allah would accept their efforts.

He said that Sirajul Haq accepted the failure in the elections and resigned from his position as the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami.

 The spokesperson also said that Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ameer-ul-Azeem had called a Shura meeting on February 17 in Mansoorah, the headquarters of Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Shura meeting would start at 10 am in Mansoorah and review the post-resignation situation. He said that the Shura would decide the future course of action for Jamaat-e-Islami.

Spokesperson Qaiser Sharif said that Jamaat-e-Islami is a fully democratic party. He said that Jamaat-e-Islami conducts regular elections at every level in accordance with its constitution. The chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, or Amir, is elected every five years by the members of the party. The union council representatives are elected every year, while the tehsil and district leaders are elected every two years and the provincial leaders every three years, he said.

He also said that the president of the election commission of Jamaat-e-Islami, Rashid Naseem, had announced three names for the next Amir of the party. They are Sirajul Haque, Liaquat Baloch and Hafiz Naeemur Rehman. He said that the members of Jamaat-e-Islami could give their opinion for any member other than these three names. He added that all the stages of the Amir selection process would be completed by March 31 and the results would be announced in April.