BNP\\\'s overhaul plan hits snag

FE Team | Published: March 08, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Though over a month has elapsed since BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia has announced to overhaul her party with a strong push reshuffling its leadership both at the centre and grassroots levels, no effective move is in sight to this end.
Party senior leaders, who also want an overhaul of the party for launching a vigorous movement against what they said the current illegal regime to force it to hold a fresh national election, they do not have any clear idea why the chairperson's initiative has failed to gather pace.
While some party leaders showed the ongoing multi-phased upazila (UZ) polls as the main reason for putting the party streamlining process on hold, others differ with them.
Talking to UNB, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf
Hossain said they could not make any marked progress in their efforts to tidy up the party as per their party chief's announcement.
"We're working to this end. Our chairperson is discussing the issue with senior leaders and giving them responsibility to revitalise the party," he said.
Admitting that no effective steps have so far been taken to rejuvenate the party as per his knowledge, the BNP policymaking body member said, "The chairperson is likely to come up with proper steps very soon."
Asked whether the party reorganising process is being hampered due to the UZ polls, the senior BNP leader said he does not think so as there is no relation between UZ polls and the party streamlining. "I feel it's very urgent to overhaul the party to wage a strong movement and the process should be completed immediately."
BNP another standing committee member Tariqul Islam, however, thinks the upazila polls may be hampering the process. "The party overhauling process may be geared up after the polls, and it will be completed as quickly as possible."
Tariqul said as he has been in Jessore for a long time he has no idea about any progress and steps in tidying up the party that boycotted the January 5 national election as its demand for a nonpartisan interim administration has gone unheeded.
At a crowded press conference in a city hotel on February 4, Khaleda had said she was taking a bit of time to reorganise her party in the face of government's repressive acts against its leaders and activists and widespread arrest of party leaders. "But it won't take too much time. We'll soon announce our fresh course of action and intensify our movement to realise our demand."
In her address to a mammoth rally in Rajbari on March 1, she again said her party will take to the streets after recasting each unit of the party. "There's no alternative to movement to dislodge the Awami League regime. We're overhauling the party now. On completion of the party streaming process, we'll launch a fresh movement after the upazila polls.
Asked what progress his party has made so far in tiding it up, Lt Gen (retd) Mahbub said though their steps in this connection are not visible, they are doing now primary and some basic tasks to bring a significant change in the parry and make it stronger.
He mentioned that Khaleda Zia has already sat with Dhaka City unit BNP leaders, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) leaders and some other professional bodies and gave them necessary directives to reorganise their respective units and wings of the party.
Like Tariqul, he also thinks they could not accelerate the party rearranging process as they are now giving their main attention to the UZ polls that will largely complete in March next.