“People want their voting rights back; they want elections. February’s vote will be like a festival,” he said.
Alamgir’s comments came on the heels of the new students’ party, National Citizen Party (NCP), demanding the scrapping of the existing Constitution, and a constituent assembly election initially, ahead of the next round of national polls.
Speaking to ThePrint, Bangladeshi political journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon called it highly unlikely that the polls would be held in Bangladesh next February.
“While the BNP wants polls to happen, both the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the NCP do not want them, at least not so soon,” he said. “Under [Chief Adviser of Bangladesh] Muhammad Yunus, both Jamaat and the NCP have a free rein. A BNP government will not fit their agenda.”
Mirza Fakhrul Islam, however, has expressed confidence in the February polls, arguing the NCP no longer has much influence among the general public.
In the interview, Alamgir said, “As for the NCP, we do not even consider them a force anymore…students were the spark that ignited the uprising against Sheikh Hasina. But now they have nothing. Even if they call, people do not come.”
The scrapping of the existing Constitution and a constituent assembly election are not the only points of discord between the BNP and the NCP.
The NCP wants the Awami League to be brought to trial, as a party, swiftly, instead of allowing the AL to participate in the next round of national polls.
Speaking to the Bangladesh press on 21 September this year, NCP convener Nahid Islam asserted that crimes against humanity, perpetrated during the July 2024 mass uprising, had led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.
Nahid Islam said his deposition as the 47th witness in the case against Sheikh Hasina and her two associates had just concluded.
He said that the case concerns crimes against humanity committed during the July protests. Sheikh Hasina was not only accused as an individual in the current lawsuit, but the matter also went beyond her individual culpability, Islam added.
“This was not merely a personal crime; it was a political crime. Therefore, the Awami League, as a party, should be brought to trial. The tribunal has the scope to do so,” he told the press in Bangladesh.
Islam said that there was sufficient evidence before the tribunal—Sheikh Hasina, as party chief, decided to act against the people and to kill them to consolidate her absolute political power and remain in office.
“The people resisted and overthrew her. Hence, this was a political crime committed by the Awami League as a party,” Islam further said in his media address. “The Awami League should be brought to trial as a party without delay.”
The other two accused in the lawsuit under trial at the International Crimes Tribunal-1 are former Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and former Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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