Two Jatiya Party MP-elects have claimed that Raushan Ershad will be the next Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.
The party, however, has not yet made any specific announcement with other party leaders remaining silent.
Keeping the nation and its leaders and activists behind a smokescreen, the party won 13 seats in the 10th general elections on Sunday. It had earlier won 20 seats in the polls, notching up 33 seats.
Jatiya Party Presidium member Kazi Firoze Rashid told reporters on Monday the party’s elected candidates would take oath as MPs after a gazette notification.
“It is Raushan Ershad who will be the Opposition Leader,” he said after coming out of the house of Raushan Ershad in Dhaka’s Gulshan. He won the Dhaka-6 seat.
Another Jatiya Party Presidium member Tajul Islam Chowdhury told bdnews24.com: “We will go to Parliament with Presidium member-1 Raushan Ershad in the lead.”
“It is everyone’s decision. Everyone has the trust on Raushan Ershad.”
Asked what will happen to the party if Raushan becomes the Opposition Leader, Tajul said, “You know that the honourable chairman has been admitted to CMH.”
Ershad was dramatically admitted to the CMH since after he announced the boycott of the polls. The party’s leaders have been issuing conflicting statements since then.
He won Rangput but failed in a seat in Lalmonirhat. Though he had appealed to the Election Commission, it had not been accepted.
Serving as the health minister of the polls-time government, Raushad had been elected uncontested.
Ershad’s brother GM Quader and party secretary general Ruhul Amin Howlader have become the mouthpieces of the party but they are silent about Ershad’s admission to hospital.
Jatiya Party presidium member and Prime Minister’s Advisor Ziauddin Ahmed Bablu declined to make any comment.
“I am still in Chittagong. I will later inform you,” he told bdnews24.com.
Ershad’s political affairs secretary Sunil Shubho Roy also declined to comment, saying he was out of Dhaka.
Awami League president Sheikh Hasina told reporters on Monday that the Jatiya Party would be with the Grand Alliance. She also said the Opposition Party will also be in the BNP-less Parliament.
BNP leaders had been alleging that a conspiracy was on to make Ershad the Opposition Leader through a ‘staged’ election excluding them from it.
Source: Bd news24
With Hasina as the Leader of the House and Raushan as the Leader of the Opposition, the next Jatiya Shangshad should be a real “Fatafati” Shangshad. Shabash Bangalee.