Bangladesh: Yunus’ Exclusive Talks With BNP Leader Irks Two Major Allies

<p>A meeting between Bangladesh Chief Adviser Mumammad Yunus with BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman has irked two major allies of the interim government, the student-led NCP and Jamaat-e-Islami.</p>
<p>Yunus returned to Bangladesh on Saturday ending his four-day London tour, which featured the meeting with Rahman, the acting chief of former prime minister Khaleda Zia&rsquo;s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).</p>
<p>After the meeting with Rahman, BNP leader Amir Kharsu Mahmud Chowdhury and Yunus’ security adviser Khalilur Rahman held a joint briefing and hinted that elections could be held in February next year.</p>
<p>Both Jamaat and National Citizen Party (NCP) have termed the meeting in London on Friday between Yunus and the BNP leader as his bias towards a particular party. BNP is the arch rival of the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.</p>
<p>In a statement on Saturday, Jamaat termed the joint press briefing by representatives of both Yunus and Rahman as a &ldquo;breach of political norms&rdquo; since the interim government chief particularly advanced the election time deviating from the deadline he announced last week in Dhaka.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Through this, he (Yunus) has expressed special affection for a party (BNP), which has undermined his impartiality,&rdquo; the statement said, adding that instead of announcing the new deadline on the foreign soil, he should have done it after consulting other parties on his return home.</p>
<p>The NCP, which was launched in February, on Friday night said people would not accept any election date before the implementation of the proposed July Charter, referring to last year&rsquo;s violent student-led agitation that toppled Hasina&rsquo;s regime.</p>
<p>Hasina fled to India on August 5 and three days later, Yunus assumed charge as the chief of the interim government. The NCP emerged as a political offshoot of Students Against Discrimination (SAD).</p>
<p>The NCP said the Yunus-Rahman meeting laid more importance on the election deadline but the &ldquo;people&rsquo;s main demand&rdquo; in the post-Hasina regime &ldquo;namely justice and reform, did not receive the same importance&rdquo;, adding &ldquo;the NCP finds this very disappointing.&rdquo; The BNP, several other parties and the military had been mounting pressure on Yunus to conduct general elections by December. He, however, in a nationwide address last week, said the polls would be held in April next year.</p>
<p>Yunus previously said the polls would be held in between December 2024 or June 2025 following the reforms and justice or the trial of the deposed regime leaders were completed.</p>
<p>The Jamaat statement said it was &ldquo;morally inappropriate&rdquo; for Yunus as the head of the interim government to hold a joint press briefing with a single party and added that such actions raised doubts among people about fairness and neutrality of the upcoming election process.</p>
<p>The statement came after a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Council was held on Saturday morning.</p>
<p>The NCP, on the other hand, said it repeatedly observed that the government is giving priority to the position and demands of &ldquo;only one political party&rdquo; on the election issue.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We believe that holding the National Assembly elections without a clear roadmap for the formulation of the ‘July Proclamation’, the implementation of the ‘July Charter’ and the implementation of the trial will turn the popular uprising into a mere transfer of power and will suppress the people’s desire for state building,&rdquo; the NCP statement read.</p>
<p>Yunus’ interim government had disbanded Awami League until its leaders were exposed to punitive actions for what it claimed were their brutal actions to tame the uprising.</p>
<p>Most Awami leaders were arrested, some went underground or fled abroad as the interim government initiated a process to try them, including Hasina, in Bangladesh&rsquo;s International Crimes Tribunal on charges like crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)</p>