Jatiya Part faces another split as Raushan announces council

Jatiya Party faces yet another split as Raushan Ershad, the chief patron of the party, has constituted a committee to hold the its national council. Two influential leaders of the party - Kazi Firoz Rashid and Syed Abu Hossain Babla - for the first time appeared beside Raushan centering the announcement of the committee as internal turmoil is getting more and more visible.

Raushan announced the committee to hold the party’s national council on 9 March at an emergency press conference at her residence in the city’s Gulshan today, Sunday.

Frioz Rashid and Syed Abu Hossain Babla were accompanying her at the press conference.

Firoz Rashid has been made convener of the council implementation committee while Babla co-convener and Safiqul Islam member secretary. Golam Sarwar Milon has been made joint convener and Ziaul Haque Mridha treasurer at the five-member committee.

Addressing the press conference, Raushan said JaPa has been embroiled in a severe crisis. She has assumed the charge of JaPa’s chairman at the insistence of the leaders-activists of the party to reorganise the party and announced to hold the national council of the party on 9 March.

She said the party’s founding members including Firoz Rashid and Sye Abu Hossain Babla and followers of HM Ershad have stood by her side. They all are united to reinvigorate the JaPa by holding a good national council.

Meanwhile, JaPa secretary general Mujibul Haque Chunnu has spoken with newspersons about Raushan’s announcement to hold the party’s council at the party chairman’s office at Banani.

“We did not call any council. We don’t have any connection with who announced the council from outside. Others can hold 10 councils, form committees but we don’t have anything to do with it,” Mujibul said.

JaPa chairman GM Quader is the younger brother of the party’s founder HM Ershad. He had political disagreements with Ershad’s wife Raushan for a long time. The conflict between these two leaders intensified before the 12th parliamentary election on 7 January so much so that Raushan and her son Rahgir Al Mahi Ershad did not participate in the election.

The party reached a seat-sharing agreement with the ruling Awami League in 26 parliamentary constituencies. The party fielded candidates in 283 seats out of 300 in the country. However, JaPa candidates could win in only 11 seats.

A section of the defeated candidates had been criticising the leadership of GM Quader since the election. The defeated candidates even hold a meeting. The party took punitive actions against some leaders and some were relieved from the party posts.

Amid this situation, the party’s chief patron Raushan announced herself as the chairman of the party on 28 January. She also declared Kazi Mamunur Rashid as the secretary general and relieved GM Quader and Mujibul Haque from their posts.