Opposition ally Jamaat-e-Islami has withdrawn its mayoral candidates for Rajshahi and Sylhet city corporations to please Khaleda Zia and favour BNP-backed aspirants there.
Khaleda, chief of the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance, has been annoyed at Jamaat’s recent role in handling the May 5 rally of Hefajat-e Islam, a radical Islamist organisation.
Jamaat leaders had convinced Khaleda that they had been effectively using Hefajat’s agitation to beef up their anti-government movement.
As part of its strategy, Jamaat had made efforts to have the Hefajat rally linger at Shapla Chattar in the capital on May 5. But law enforcers early next day had driven the Hefajat men out of the city, which frustrated the opposition, said insiders in the 18-party alliance.
Against such backdrop, two Jamaat-backed mayoral aspirants on Sunday withdrew their candidacies from the June 15 polls to Rajshahi and Sylhet city corporations, despite having strong support there, said the insiders.
On Monday night, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at a meeting with top alliance leaders in her Gulshan office expressed dissatisfaction over Jamaat’s failure to handle the Hefajat movement, said meeting sources.
“The government now has the upper hand due to the failure. Now we must win the city corporation polls to boost the opposition men and the [anti-govt] agitation,” an alliance leader quoted Khaleda as saying in the meeting.
Meeting Sources said Khaleda in exchange for the candidacy withdrawal may speak in her rallies for the release of the top Jamaat leaders now facing war crimes trials. BNP may also extend support to Jamaat’s own agitation programmes.
The BNP-led alliance wants to win the city corporation polls to use the victory to encourage its leaders and activists more in realising the demand for installation of a non-party election-time government.
“In Monday’s meeting, the alliance formed four teams to monitor, coordinate and assist their favoured candidates in four city corporations,” Hamdullah Al Mehedi, secretary general of Bangladesh Labour Party, a component of the opposition alliance, said yesterday.
Each of the teams, comprised of one representative from all the parties in the alliance, would be led by a BNP central leader, he added.
Source: The Daily Star
