BNP mired in unrest and confusion

Logo of BNP
Logo of BNP

Vacillations over joining the parliament, taking oath and deciding on whether to join any other elections under the incumbent government, have created a sense of unrest in the BNP leadership. With the party’s chairperson in jail and the central leaders mired in indecision, the leaders and workers at the grassroots are confused and frustrated.

After rejecting the results of the 30 December election, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP) leaders took the decision not to contest in any further elections under the present government. They decided not to join the parliament and not to take oath. The party, accordingly, boycotted the upazila parishad polls. In fact, 180 field level leaders were expelled from the party for going ahead to take part in this local government election.

Then in April all the decisions were reversed. Five members of parliament from the party took oath. However, party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir desisted from taking oath and his seat fell vacant. Now BNP has decided to take part in the by-election for his vacated seat. They will also nominate candidates for the reserved seats for women in the parliament.

There had been speculations initially that a deal had been struck for the release of party chairperson Khaleda Zia on bail in exchange of the BNP MPs taking oath. When asked about the matter on 29 April, BNP standing committee member Jamir Uddin Sircar said that if they took oath upon instructions from Tarique Rahman, then there might be some sort of veracity to this speculation.

A number of other senior leaders of the party told this correspondent that they too had heard that the MPs-elect would join the parliament in exchange of Khaleda Zia’s release. It was said that a BNP leader and a close relative of Khaleda Zia had discussed the matter with certain quarters of the government, though the senior leaders had not be informed of the matter.

Party sources say that after these discussions, the government quarters contacted the five MPs-elect separately and these MPs expressed their eagerness to join the parliament, even if it meant violating party decision. This diffused the necessity to release Khaleda Zia. Under these circumstances, the party’s secretary general refused to take oath. He did, however, say that the five MPs had taken oath under instructions from the acting chairman and that was a correct decision.

Mirza Fakhrul declined from joining the parliament in order to avoid any sort of adverse reaction from within the party, according to sources in BNP. The party’s acting chairperson Tarique Rahman did not object to his stand. Mirza Fakhrul has chosen to term his refusal to take oath as part of a political strategy.

The sudden changes in the decision to take oath and the secretary general’s refusal to do so have reportedly confused the party leaders and workers. The field-level leaders who were expelled for joining the upazila polls, have reacted to these decisions.

One such disgruntled leadership, former general secretary of the Indurkani upazila BNP in Pirojpur, Faizur Kabir, told Prothom Alo, “I hope the party will now withdraw its organisational action and reinstate me in my position.”

BNP standing committee member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, speaking to Prothom Alo, said, “There can be differences of opinion in a party over any issue. There were differences over whether to take oath or not and they expressed these differences. This is a healthy practice for the party. At the end of the day, the party decision is the final decision.”

Several allies of the BNP-led 20 party coalition were unhappy with BNP joining parliament after having rejected the results. As a reaction to BNP’s decision, an ally of the alliance, Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP), left the coalition. President of another ally, LDP, Oli Ahmed said that BNP’s decision to join the parliament was wrong and the people have rejected this decision.

BNP’s Khulna division organising secretary Nazrul Islam Manju told Prothom Alo, “The people have not accepted the rigged election and so the field level leaders and activists do not accept BNP joining the parliament. They are angry, that is the bottom line. They are no longer interested in what had happened after that.”

He said, “Given the party’s present leadership, the movement for democracy will not be possible unless Khaleda Zia is released.”

This report, orginally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir.