BCL waits for Hasina’s decision for new committee
The central leadership of ruling Bangladesh Awami League’s student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League aka BCL is waiting for AL president and prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s decision on its new committee.
BCL concluded its national council session on 12 May without forming a new committee as its central leadership and their guardians -- AL leadership -- failed to reach a consensus on it.
Concluding the council session even without holding its final session, BCL leaders gathered at the adjacent Shahbagh intersection and announced that prime minister and AL president Sheikh Hasina will announce the committee later.
Addressing the inaugural session of the BCL council session, AL president Sheikh Hasina asked the BCL leaders to make a consensus among them to elect its new leadership.
She also said a ‘subject committee’ would sit the next day [12 May] in this regard. Party insiders said the ‘subject committee’ is usually comprised of former leaders of the student body to select the new leadership.
But ever since there is no development with regard to the formation of the new committee, said BCL leaders.
Prothom Alo talked to several vice presidents and joint secretaries of the student organisation but they said they, too, are unaware of any development in this regard.
Council session is usually held to elect the new leadership of a party with the mandate of the party councillors.
BCL leaders said Hasina is taking time ostensibly to scrutinise academic and family backgrounds of the candidates for the leadership so that no controversial person can get berth in the BCL committee as many in the central leadership were subject to criticism for their past records.
Allegations have it that some of their central leadership have had backgrounds of doing politics with Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of controversial political party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, in their early student-life.
Insiders said the main fear among the AL leadership in making a decision on the BCL new committee is lest any student leader with Shibir-background gets berth in the new committee.
Talking to Prothom Alo, several candidates for the new committee have voiced their dismay at the way they are being stigmatised by their fellow activists, bringing various accusations against them on social networks particularly on Facebook.
Terming it unprecedented, some candidates seeking anonymity told Prothom Alo that whoever is being highlighted as prospective candidates are being vilified in the social media and some less-known online news portals.
“Though my father and uncle were involved directly in the liberation war of 1971, someone from a fake Facebook account posted that I’m from a family with an anti-liberation war ideology,” said a BCL leader.
In last week alone, at least 40-50 candidates faced allegation of being involved in drug trades. Allegations levelled against them are: they are married and/or an infiltrator from opposition BNP’s student wing Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal or Shibir.
A total of 111 aspirants submitted their CVs for president posts and 212 others for general secretary post of BCL.
Of them, the candidature of a total of 68 president aspirants and 171 general secretary aspirants stood valid as AL president Hasina restricted to 28 years as the age for the BCL leadership.
Talking to Prothom Alo, AL’s forest and environment affairs secretary and former BCL leader Delwar Hossain, who is in charge looking after the BCL affairs, said, “Nobody except Sheikh Hasina knows about the committee. But we can assume that she will declare it soon after assessing the past records of the candidates.”
Dwelling on the vilification of rival candidates in the social media, Delwar said this type of campaigns would only cause harm to the party.
Top posts of the student organisation of a ruling political party bear quite importance in the country’s political culture with the student body leadership having a strong influence in almost all of the affairs of the universities and colleges.
Allegations have it that the leadership of the ruling party’s student wing often earns millions of taka through various means like controlling tendering process for the construction work in the educational institutions and forming new committees for different units.