Despite BNP’s strong stance of not participating in next parliamentary election without non-party caretaker government, they’re taking preparation for the election silently; however, they’re aware of the ‘traps’ laid by the government.
As part of preparation, the party is conducting survey in every constituency. They’re searching eligible candidates through this survey conducted by a professional body. The central committee has given direction to the party-men aspiring for nominations to stay in their respective constituency and increase communications with the local people.
BNP Standing Committee member Khandker Mosharraf Hossain told The Bangladesh Pratidin, we won’t participate in next election under this government. Rather we’d participate in it by pursuing our demand of non-party caretaker government during the election.
When asked about the preparation for the election, he said the preparation isn’t a big deal if the demand of non-party government is fulfilled.
BNP don’t want to fall in the ‘trap’ laid by the government and want to take the decision of participating in the election on their own, according to the sources. Many of the senior leaders of the party want to participate in the election by making understanding with government. However, BNP’s high-command rejected the idea as from the experience of last general parliamentary election they think it will reap no benefit to them if they participate this time in the same way. Hence, they want to hold their anti-government stance and solve the problem through movement and demonstrations. However, at the same time, the preparation for the election is going on silently and the aspiring candidates are emphasizing on constituency-based movement programmes.
From the report of ongoing survey, they expect to get the required information regarding personal details of the aspiring candidates, legal complexities they had to face, stance in last election, history of loyalty to the party, relationship with the local and other leader-activists and their acceptability compared to the opponent aspiring candidates.
Besides, the party has started to take back banished but qualified leaders who have shown the example of sacrifice in their political career. Those who applied to return to the party are being accepted as well, while the cornered or inactive leaders are being made active again.
In addition to planning for anti-government movement, BNP is running diplomatic activity as they assume they will need help from the friend-state to realize their demand of doing election under non-party government. Already, they have held meeting with ambassadors and high-commissioners of UN, EU, US, UK, Germany and Canada. Last month, they have showed them the importance of next national election as well as the incidence of disappearance and murder of anti-government people. Furthermore, the matter of international relations with BNP is being supervised from London by their acting chairman Tarique Rahman.
One member of BNP Standing Committee anonymously said their high-command is firmed to not participate in next election under the ruling party.
If they don’t participate in next election, a few of their leaders can participate independently, the party high-command thinks. It also has a list of some of their leaders who keep in touch with the government.
BNP senior join secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said the government must resign from power prior to the next general election and it will have to hold under non-party government.
Movement with 22 parties: To realize their demand of participating in next election under non-partied government, they are going to form movement with 22 parties. The outline regarding this is almost final after they held discussions with these parties recently. BNP will present the outline to the public after getting its approval from national standing committee.
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said we’re working on to build greater unity with different political parties and the decision of finalizing the outline of joint movement has been taken in the meeting of standing committee. Very soon we’d present it to the nation.
About the details of the outline, he said it would include the resigning of government, dissolving of parliament and transferring power to a non-party government under whom the environment of free and fair election will be created.
According to the source, for running simultaneous movement, BNP already held discussion with 22 political parties from democratic, leftist and Islamist background. They are in discussion with seven parties of newly formed ‘Gonototro Mancha.’ The proposal of these parties aiming at free-fare election and reformation of the state is also included in the outline of BNP. It’s assumed that there’ll be no difference in opinion as the planning of these same-minded parties are goes in the same line.
Second phase of discussion with these parties will start after BNP announces their party-planning. Simultaneous movement programme can be announced from the unified decisions taken in that discussion.
Chief Coordinator of Gonosonghoti Andolon, Zonaed Saki said the prolonged political crisis of the country can’t be mitigated by one person or party. For this, we need to rebuild the state by constitutional reform and the unification of all parties is needed in this regard.
They have presented their proposal of reformation of state in their initial discussion with BNP and will take further decisions after scrutinizing BNP’s planning.
@The article appeared on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on September 20, 2022 as the lead news and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
