Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami ameer and Leader of the Opposition in parliament Dr Shafiqur Rahman has said the BNP government is walking the same path as the ousted Awami League government. He said that in seven months in power, the BNP government has destroyed every institution of the state. Because the government has failed to accept the opposition’s cooperation, Jamaat will from now on cooperate with the country’s 180 million people rather than the government, he said.
He was speaking on Sunday afternoon (18 October) at an open discussion titled “A year-end review of the promises and expectations of the July Charter” at the Shafiqul Kabir auditorium of the Dhaka Reporters Unity in Segunbagicha, Dhaka. The event was organised by the Amar Bangladesh (AB) Party.
Shafiqur Rahman said the BNP forgot its own past overnight after coming to power. Until the afternoon of 5 August 2024, the BNP was a political party just like Jamaat, he said. Though they differed on some issues, there was no disagreement between them on the referendum. Jamaat wanted the referendum held first so that it would not be left in doubt, but the BNP did not want that, and the decision was instead taken to hold the election and the referendum on the same day.
He said the Election Commission had told members of parliament that they would take two oaths. But BNP lawmakers, though they took the oath as members of parliament, did not take the oath as members of the council. He alleged that the BNP began behaving aggressively from that day.
The opposition leader said the BNP now claims that the people voted to give it the task of forming a government for five years. But had the verdict of the referendum also been respected, the opposition would not have had to take its movement outside parliament, he said. It is the BNP that has pushed the opposition on to the path of protest.
Shafiqur Rahman alleged that ruling party MPs had been given special allocations while no one in the opposition had. Special allocations were given for 208 ruling party seats, yet not a single opposition MP received one, he said. People had hoped the mass uprising of 2024 would end the old politics and begin a new one, but the country is being taken back to the old ways, he said. He remarked that a tax had even been imposed on buffaloes.
“Despite hundreds of instances of engineering and theft, the people have seated us in the opposition. Our 89 MPs from these seats will work as guardians of the country’s 180 million people, Insha’Allah,” Shafiqur Rahman said. “Even if the BNP changes, we will not change what we say. We will secure the July Charter and the people’s verdict in the referendum,” he said.
The Jamaat ameer also said the new fascism would fall. Though Jamaat had been offered various inducements, it had rejected them all, he said. The opposition will stand as firm as the Himalayas and move towards its goal, and the 2024 uprising is a lesson and an inspiration for them. But rather than wanting the government to fall, they had wanted it to succeed, because the government’s success means the country’s success, he said.
“Until now we said we would cooperate with the government. From today we declare that we will cooperate with the 180 million people. This government has failed to accept our cooperation. They have no capacity to take the opposition’s cooperation,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report