Relaxed, National Unity leaders set to take next course

As ‘Jatiya Oikya Front’ or National Unity Front has taken a shape, leaders of the new opposition coalition have found double delight.

They have been happy, in the first place, with the formation of the anti-government coalition that demands restoration of democracy through free and fair elections and pledges change in political culture.

Simultaneously, some opposition leaders said, they have got relief from possible embarrassment that could have been created for inclusion of former president Badruddoza Chowdhury’s Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh despite their uncomfortable relations.

It took months of negotiations among the key leaders and their friends to unite the parties and civic groups of different streams to come to a common platform with common causes. The final announcement came on Saturday.

Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Gano Forum led by Kamal Hossain, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal ASM Abdur Rab and Nagarik Oikya convenor Mahmudur Rahman are the major players in the new coalition. B Chowdhury was absent at the final moment. 

Now, senior leaders of the coalition, said they are planning public rallies and other forms of protests, at divisional and district levels, to create pressure of public opinion on the government to realise their 7-point demand and 11 goals.

The programme will be chalked out in a day or two, some leaders told Prothom Alo on Sunday, a day after the announcement.

However, the programmes will be chalked out with some sort of support from the key components of the 20-party alliance led by the BNP. But, Jamaat-e-Islam, a party to the alliance, will not be included in the process of announcing or observing the programmes, leaders said.

Jamaat has also accepted the reality, its leaders admitted.

The talk of the town in the past two days was whether B Chowdhury-led BDB was excluded or itself pulled out from the process.

The leaked phone conversation between Nagarik Oikya’s Manna and BDB joint secretary general Mahi B Chowdhury went viral and created widespread controversies in the political arena.

It was heard that Mahi called the move to form National Unity Front without them as “an anti-state conspiracy” and when asked about it, Manna said, “Is it an important issue? I don’t want to reckon it to be so important.”

Several senior leaders of BNP, Jukto Front (United Front) and Oikya Prokriya (Unity Process) said the gap between BDB leaders and others widened day by day as some of them were not comfortable in the past several meetings.

BDB leader B Chowdhury earlier floated the United Front later joined by Rab, Manna and a few others while Kamal Hossain, during the negotiation process, first called for “National Unity Process” as a platform to bring all together.

The BDB assigned retention of Jamaat in the BNP’s alliance as an objectionable point but other leaders of the unity process believe the ‘actual reason’ behind the BDB’s ‘excuse’ is different.

A senior Jukto Front leader, who declined to be named, explained that the distance between top BNP leadership and B Chowdhury and his son Mahi B Chowdhury could not be minimised despite the BNP’s willingness to join hands for greater unity.

Also, the leaders said, there was a palpable tension between B Chowdhury and Kamal Hossain over the issue of the coalition’s leadership.

Some leaders of the coalition were apprehensive of the movement of the BDB as they felt the process of forming the alliance was being ‘deliberately’ delayed. The reason for such delay was believed to be business relations of the two key leaders of BDB with the government quarters.

Still, BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said they ‘tried hard to include them (BDB leaders) into the [new] coalition. We are still optimistic about their joining.”

About the complaints of avoiding BDB against the BNP,  Moudud said it is useless to blame others when the BDB leaders have cleared their position by demanding certain number of parliamentary seats, a demand which, the BNP leader termed politically unrealistic.

Unity process leader Subrata Chowdhury ruled out the BDB’s claims, saying that they came up with a varieties of demands including 150 seats, post of prime minister or president and Jamaat issue."We’re tired of such demands.”

Mahi B Chowdhury countered with argument about Jamaat, “I don’t know whether there is any committee of Jamaat in my constituency (Munshiganj-1)... B Chowdhury was elected president with votes of members of parliament. Jamaat’s votes were not required.”

Another issue created gap between the coalition leaders. The draft declaration, prepared by Gano Forum, JSD and Nagarik Oikyo leaders, spoke of political parties imbued with spirit of struggle for independence while B Chowdhury inserted a negative list of ‘parties that directly or indirectly opposed independence’.

Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, BNP standing committee member, said, “The liberation war in ’71 was caused by demand for democracy and self-rule.  History would have been different, had Pakistan accepted the results of 1970 elections. Today’s demand of the countrymen is to restore democracy and right to vote. If anyone takes stance against this, we will eventually call them anti-liberation forces.”

* This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten by Nusrat Nowrin.