Former BNP leader Nazmul Huda has extended his support to the Awami League (AL)-led 14-Party Alliance. He will join all programmes of the alliance from now on, under the banner of the 31-party Bangladesh National Alliance (BNA). The former BNP minister made this announcement at a press conference after holding a view-exchange meeting with the alliance leaders at AL chief Sheikh Hasina’s political office in Dhanmondi yesterday. “There is no scope for politics without resisting terrorism. That’s why we extend our full support to the steps being taken by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,” he said. AL presidium member and 14-Party Alliance coordinator Mohammad Nasim confirmed to journalists that the Huda-led alliance would participate in a countrywide human chain formation by the ruling alliance on June 19 to protest against the ongoing terror activities, including the targeted killings. Nasim thanked Huda for coming forward to protest against the targeted killings, saying that the process to hold view-exchange meetings would continue. He added that the 14-Party Alliance would also hold such meetings with other non-communal political parties. He blamed the BNP-Jamaat for the targeted killings. “The leaders of the two parties (BNP and Jamaat) are hatching a conspiracy to make the country unstable through provocation,” he added.
Huda said peace is prevailing in the country as street politics have ended and there are no clashes, anarchy, terrorism or strikes. “I thank the Prime Minister as she has succeeded in stopping these activities,” he added.
He accused the BNP of hatching a conspiracy to oust the government in connivance with Israel and Mossad. “If we strengthen the 14-Party Alliance, it’ll ultimately strengthen the hands of the Prime Minister,” he added.
Huda was the most junior member of the BNP’s policymaking body, the National Standing Committee, when military ruler Gen Ziaur Rahman formed the party in 1978. He had secured a cabinet berth in BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s government. Khaleda, however, sacked him from her cabinet in 1996 after he proposed a caretaker government roadmap. The BNP expelled him from the party on charges of breaching party discipline in 2010 when he was a vice-chairman.
Huda revived his BNP membership a year later after he apologised to Khaleda, but eventually left the party in 2014. He floated two parties—the Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) in 2010 and the Bangladesh Manabadhikar Party (BMP)—in late-2014. Finally, he formed the 31-party BNA, which includes his Trinamool BNP, in April this year. He had expressed his willingness to meet 14-Party Alliance leaders in the interest of fair general elections.
AL leaders Mahbub-ul-Alam Hanif, Dr Dipu Moni, JSD leader Shirin Akhter, JSD faction president Sharif Nurul Ambia, and Workers’ Party general secretary G Fazle Hossain Badsha were present at the meeting.