Sumaiya Sultana Chhiya has announced her voluntary resignation as a member of the convening committee of the Jahangirnagar University (JU) unit of Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal. She is a student of the university’s 52nd batch in the Fine Arts department.
She announced the decision in a Facebook post on Thursday night (1 October).
She wrote that she had long been involved in politics out of belief in the ideals of the late President Ziaur Rahman, Bangladeshi nationalism and democracy, but that the current political and organisational situation of JU Chhatra Dal did not match her political beliefs, values and expectations.
Internal matters, unwanted incidents and the overall political environment in the organisation had made her think deeply, she wrote, and out of conscience she had decided to step back from campus politics for now.
“There is no room to see this resignation as my withdrawal from nationalist politics. I am stepping down from the post, not from the ideology,” she wrote. She described it as a temporary break from JU Chhatra Dal politics and said she would consider returning if the organisation came to be run on the basis of Ziaur Rahman’s ideals, discipline, principles and organisational values.
Replying to a comment under her post, she wrote: “If you protest, you get expelled. Isn’t it better to leave voluntarily than to be expelled?”
JU Chhatra Dal convener Zahir Uddin Mohammad Babar said she had taken the decision of her own accord and that he had no comment.
Sumaiya contested an executive member post in the Jahangirnagar University Central Students’ Union (JUCSU) election on the Chhatra Dal-backed panel. Earlier, on Thursday 24 September, Chhatra Dal’s central committee expelled Anjuman Ikra, a JU student and leader of the university unit, including from primary membership, according to a press release from the organisation’s central office.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report