Shantanu Mukharji
FROM the games that Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is playing, it’s now clear that the party is on a fast track to hog political space in Bangladesh and fill the vacuum created in the wake of the regime change in Dhaka.
BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman is issuing statements at regular intervals from his hideout in London, calling for unity and constantly cautioning the people from any attempt by former PM Sheikh Hasina to make a comeback. With most of the criminal cases having been withdrawn against him, he is naturally emboldened and staying aloft in the social media and in the vernacular press trying to marginalise all other political forces ensuring they do not get the slightest elbow room for any manoeuvres.
In a politically significant development, BNP General Secretary Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir spent several days conferring with Tarique in London and returned only recently with a fresh blueprint. The party, in a carefully crafted plan, is keeping the freedom fighters and the pro-liberation narrative alive. That’s because the country’s Victory Day (December 16) just got over and the Bengali emotions are still reminiscent of the sacrifices the intellectuals and the country made during the liberation war, 53 years ago. And, this is a formidable political weapon that the BNP will like to use in its political machinations to come back to power after years in oblivion.
Wooing Hindu minority
The BNP has also started wooing the Hindu minority, which continues to suffer large-scale atrocities in the hands of the religious extremists and fanatics. This way the party is able to wean way any sympathy that the remnants of the Awami League (AL) or the Jamaat are trying to generate from the point of view of vote bank.
The BNP is dexterously keeping those lobbies on the right side who are upset with the developments in the aftermath of the arrest of ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das. The party, with ambitious political designs up its sleeves, is striking a delicate balance between all political camps which matter in the current power game.
There are clear indications that after the remaining cases are withdrawn against Tarique (major cases against his mother Khaleda Zia have already been withdrawn), the stage will be set for him to return and occupy a crucial position in the country, dwarfing other political adversaries. As it is, the Jamaat and its affiliates have hardly any following amongst the minority, the intelligentsia, or the armed forces. It must be underlined that because of Tarique’s father General Ziaur Rahman, the erstwhile President and an accepted freedom fighter by many who also believe that he was the first to announce Bangladesh as a liberated and free country in 1971 from Kalurghat.
March to border
In furtherance of its anti-India activities and in pursuit of its desperation to come to power, the BNP held a long march recently when its activists from the Jatiotabadi Jubo Dal and Jatiotabadi Chatra Dal, parked in 5,000 cars, went up to Akhaura border in Tripura. The entire exercise was meant to display a show of force and exhibit to the people that the BNP was still a force to reckon with. The march was to protest against India’s alleged interference in the internal affairs of Bangladesh as well as to register the party’s ire against the vandalism of the Bangladesh Consulate in Agartala. It was, however, stopped 1 km before the Indian border.
