On Sunday, at an emergency press conference at the National Press Club, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Amir Dr. Shafiqur Rahman announced that eight parties were together in an electoral understanding. Now, two more parties have joined them. Those two parties are the National Citizen Party (NCP) and the LDP, led by Colonel Oli Ahmed.
With these two parties, they have now formed a 10-party electoral alliance. Discussions on how many seats each will get in the alliance will take place later. As far as is known, they are giving NCP around 30 seats.
Senior journalist and popular YouTuber Masood Kamal stated that the NCP, a party formed with great promise and seen as the mouthpiece of the youth society while claiming to be the vanguard of the anti-government movement, is now joining an electoral alliance with Jamaat after receiving 30 seats from them. This means that in the 30 places where they will contest, there will be no candidates from Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Andolan, or any other party in this alliance.
In the remaining 270 seats, NCP will have no candidates. NCP will work in favour of the alliance’s candidates. NCP members, and in NCP’s 30 seats, Jamaat and others, if they have a presence there, will also fight for them. This is the main foundation of the electoral unity.
Here is the full transcript of the video:
Now, what will be the result of this unity? How will the election be in the coming days? Out of the 30, how many seats can NCP win or not? There will be extensive discussions on these. But in the meantime, what has started happening is that NCP has begun to break apart. Already, several of their top leaders have resigned from NCP. And these resignations are noticeable. Why? The faces of NCP, the people who were considered the faces of NCP, several such leaders have already resigned.
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The NCP’s faces are Nahid Islam, Akhtar Hossain, Hasnat Abdullah, Sarjis Alam, Dr. Tasnim Jara and Tajnuva Jabin. Another is Samantha Sharmin. She is also quite a familiar face.
Among them, Tasnim Jara resigned on Saturday. And after resigning, she said she is no longer with this party. And from the seat where she was nominated, she will contest from that seat independently. Another is Tajnuva Jabin. She also said she will not stay with the party. She posted a long statement. In that post, she said many things against them. And she will not contest the election anymore.
Even before that, a very familiar leader of this party, Mir Arshadul Haque, resigned last Thursday, when discussions were starting, probably then. And senior joint convener Samantha Sharmin also said that if NCP forms an electoral alliance with Jamaat, NCP will have to pay a heavy price for it.
Samantha Sharmin clearly said that NCP’s longstanding position and core principles are completely different from Jamaat’s politics. The party was built around justice, reform, and constituent assembly elections, i.e., the Second Republic. For alliance with anyone on these three issues, those must be preconditions. But Jamaat does not hold these preconditions. Therefore, an alliance with Jamaat is not possible.
Dr. Tasnim Jara and Tajnuva Jabin gave similar arguments. They said this decision was taken at a time when the nomination submission’s last day is tomorrow—only one day left. The bizarre rule requiring 1% voter signatures for independent candidacy has limited the opportunity to contest independently.
Tajnuva Jabin and Tasnim Jara said they will return crowd-funded money. The beneficiary? bKash—with Tk10 fee per transfer!
Although critics say the decision was made without discussion, in NCP’s central committee of 214 members, 184 voted in favour of joining Jamaat. Only 34 were against. The decision was based on the majority opinion.
This decision shows that what they have been saying all this time was mostly drama. They tried to present themselves as a centrist, democratic party, not extreme right-wing. But this action does not support their claims.
They might say it was done for the election, to cross the electoral hurdle. But will this alliance with Jamaat really help them? Personally, I am not optimistic. Jamaat won’t offer their strong seats. In weak seats, even with support, NCP won’t gain much. In the end, seats were lost, and the party’s dignity was gone—if they consider it dignity.
I said long ago that NCP’s fate would be like the Freedom Party, which started strongly but vanished. NCP had a future, but they chose the shortcut. After the movement and government fell, NCP suddenly became a ruling party ally, enjoying facilities, lobbying business, and economic gains. The NCP couldn’t escape their comfortable position, seeking more shortcuts—now as an opposition party in pursuit of additional benefits.
They believe that joining Jamaat will allow them to become an opposition party, shielding them from the Awami League’s overwhelming power. But Jamaat lacks that ability against the Awami League’s millions of supporters.
NCP’s opportunists may flee the country before elections. Their wealth should be accounted for before allowing departure.
Finally, I feel sorry when I think about the valiant freedom fighter, Oli Ahmed. This decorated freedom fighter, once the leader of the BNP, is now allying with Jamaat. What misfortune. Politics can drag a person so low.
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