Many party leaders attribute it to UZ polls
Though over a month has elapsed since BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia has announced to overhaul her party with a strong push reshuffling its leadership both at the centre and grassroots levels, no effective move is in sight to this end.
Party senior leaders, who also want an overhaul of the party for launching a vigorous movement against what they said the current illegal regime to force it to hold a fresh national election, they do not have any clear idea why the chairperson’s initiative has failed to gather pace.
While some party leaders showed the ongoing multi-phased upazila polls as the main reason for putting the party streamlining process on hold, others defer with them.
Talking to UNB, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said they could not make any marked progress in their efforts to tidy up the party as per their party chief’s announcement.
“We’re working to this end. Our chairperson is discussing the issue with senior leaders and giving them responsibility to revitalise the party,” he said.
Admitting that no effective steps have so far been taken to rejuvenate the party as per his knowledge, the BNP policymaking body member said, “The chairperson is likely to come up with proper steps very soon.”
Asked whether the party reorganising process is being hampered due to the upazila polls, the senior BNP leader said he does not think so as there is no relation between upazila polls and the party streamlining. “I feel it’s very urgent to overhaul the party to wage a strong movement and the process should be completed immediately.”
BNP another standing committee member Tariqul Islam, however, thinks the upazila polls may be hampering the process. “The party overhauling process may be geared up after the polls, and it will be completed as quickly as possible.”
Tariqul said as he has been in Jessore for a long time he has no idea about any progress and steps in tidying up the party that boycotted the January 5 national election as its demand for a nonpartisan interim administration has gone unheeded.
At a crowded press conference in a city hotel on February 4, Khaleda had said she was taking a bit of time to reorganise her party in the face of government’s repressive acts against its leaders and activists and widespread arrest of party leaders. “But it won’t take too much time. We’ll soon announce our fresh course of action and intensify our movement to realise our demand.”
In her address to a mammoth rally in Rajbari on March 1, she again said her party will take to the streets after recasting each unit of the party. “There’s no alternative to movement to dislodge the Awami League regime. We’re overhauling the party now. On completion of the party streaming process, we’ll launch a fresh movement after the upazila polls.
Asked what progress his party has made so far in tiding it up, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbub said though their steps in this regard are not visible, they are doing now primary and some basic tasks to bring a significant change in the parry and make it stronger.
He mentioned that Khaleda Zia has already sat with Dhaka City unit BNP leaders, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leaders and some other professional bodies and gave them necessary directives to reorganise their respective units and wings of the party.
Like Tariqul, he also thinks they could not accelerate the party rearranging process as they are now giving their main attention to the upazila polls that will largely complete in March next.
On February 10, Khaleda sat with the senior leaders of Dhaka city unit BNP and its associate bodies and decided to form the new committee of the each unit of city BNP unit through holding council.
Councils of all the units of ward and thana of city BNP would be held within a month, city unit BNP member secretary Abdus Salam told reporters after the meeting with Khaleda Zia.
“The party chairperson will entrust some leaders with the job of forming an effective committee of the Dhaka city unit. Each of the ward and thana committees will be formed within a month under their supervision. Then the new city committee will be formed through another council,” Salam added.
Asked about the progress of the forming the new committees and holding councils of the city BNP’s different units, Salam declined to make any comment.
On February 24, Khaleda at a meeting with Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leaders, particularly that of Dhaka University units, blasted them for their ‘failure to carry out a strong, visible movement’ in the city before the national election, and said she would take an initiative to overhaul her party’s student wing soon dissolving its DU unit first.
But there has been no visible move so far to revamp the JCD Dhaka University unit either.
Contacted, BNP student affair secretary Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee said they have started the process of reorganising the JCD unit. “But it’ll take some time.”
BNP vice chairman Abdullah Al Noman said the process of overhauling the party is going on under the supervision of the BNP chairperson, and she will announce the new committees in time.
Asked whether the Upazila polls is behind the delay, Noman replied in the negative and said the party chief is sincerely working on it, and she is gathering information about the role of leaders of different units in the previous movement. “The process will be completed within a short time.”
Source: UNB Connect