Leaders of the Anti-discrimination Student Movement and Jatiya Nagorik Committee, who led the July mass uprising, are working to form a youth-based new political party. They are attempting to create a political party by February 2025 and to participate in the next national election by organising the power of the mass upsurge.
Nasir Uddin Patwary, convener of the Jatiya Nagorik Committee, told Bangladesh Pratidin that the need to form a realistic and different type of political party has arisen in the perspective of the new political environment after August 5 to build Bangladesh anew with modern political thinking. Countrymen want a new trend in politics led by youths.
“The process to form a new party has started with the united efforts of the youths after August 5. Although it is not sure, we hope to form the party within two to three months.”
Sources at the Jatiya Nagorik Committee said the new political party will work to implement the one-point ousting fascism from the country and a new political system with the spirit of the movement of student-people. This party will participate in the 13th parliamentary elections. Candidates, who can win the polls, will be given nomination. The process of selecting possible candidates from every constituency is underway. Besides, the Jatiya Nagorik Committee is working to build constituency-based and national-level leadership.
However, the Anti-discrimination Student Movement and Jatiya Nagorik Committee, these two platforms will not be abolished after forming the new party. These two platforms will lead the new party and will work as a ‘pressure group’. Leaders of the various political parties and representatives from civil society will be included in the new party. Top leaders of the Anti-discrimination Student Movement and Jatiya Nagorik Committee will not be involved in the party directly. But some of them will participate in the polls. On the other hand, interested leaders, who want to join the new party, will get the place.
Jatiya Nagorik Committee central member Faisal Mahmud Shanta told Bangladesh Pratidin that a new political trend led by the youths is mandatory against the ongoing binary politics of Bangladesh. The base of the new trend of politics will be the spirit of 1947, 1971 and 2024. The goal of the new political party will be to change the ongoing political culture of Bangladesh. It will try to unite the nation instead of division.
Sources at the Jatiya Nagorik Committee said currently Anti-discrimination Student Movement and the Jatiya Nagorik Committee are jointly working to form district and institution-based committees. Primarily, they have a plan to announce a central convener committee. Committees at district and upazila level will be completed before the election.
On October 22, the Anti-discrimination Student Movement formed a four-member convener committee with one of its key coordinators Hasnat Abdullah as the convener and another coordinator Arif Sohel as member secretary. Coordinators -- Abdul Hannan Masud and Umama Fatima have been included in the convener committee. Anti-discrimination Student Movement and Jatiya Nagorik Committee so far announced 12 and 15 district committees respectively.
The Jatiya Nagorik Committee has named 45 more people, including the former coordinator of the Anti-discrimination Student Movement and July Smriti Foundation General Secretary Sarjis Alam, as the platform's central members.
A media release, signed by the committee’s Convener Nasir Uddin Patwary and Member Secretary Akhter Hossain, said on Monday night that the development is a part of the organisation’s ongoing process of expanding the central committee.
It also said that the Jatiya Nagorik Committee has extended its committee to implement the anti-fascism system and form a new political system with the spirit of the movement of students and people.
Among other members of the committee are -- Dhaka University Islami Chhata Shibir former leader Ali Ahsan Junyed, Dhaka University Shamsunnahar Hall’s former VP Sheikh Tasnim Afroz Emi, Chhatra Federation’s Dhaka University unit former leader Umme Habiba Benazir, Dhaka University Journalist Association’s former leader Mir Arshadul Haque, Inqilab Mancha leader Sharif Osman Hadi, Journalist Joynal Abedin Shishir and Arifur Rahman Tuhin, lawyer Mollah Faroque Ehsan and Dhaka University teacher Arani Semonti Khan.
bd-pratidin/GR
