Bangladesh: BNP And Yunus Government On A Collision Course — That’s Good News For India
Jaideep Mazumdar
Swarajya - Jan 03, 2025
The BNP leadership has resolved to protect India’s interests and ensure that anti-India forces do not gain ground in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is likely to witness serious political turmoil in the coming months. Skirmishes between the Muhammad Yunus dispensation and the principal political party in the country, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), are set to escalate into a full-blown conflict.
That’s good news for India because Yunus and his band of ‘advisers’ (the de facto ministers), who have been hostile towards India, will be under pressure and left scrambling to fight their domestic battles.
An assertion of might by the BNP will also put the country’s Islamists, who have rallied behind Yunus, on the backfoot.
Why the BNP is Unhappy
The BNP leadership is now convinced that the leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement (ADSM), who led the mass uprising that unseated Sheikh Hasina from power in early August last year, the country’s Islamists, and Yunus himself are conspiring to indefinitely postpone national elections.
It is widely known in Bangladesh that the BNP will sweep the parliamentary elections because it enjoys a huge monopoly in the country’s political space after the collapse of the Awami League (AL).
Other political parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, cannot match the BNP’s organisational strength and reach, and also its resources. Also, the BNP is the only major mainstream political party in the country.
The BNP, aware of its strengths, wants elections to be held as soon as possible, and definitely by the end of this year.
The BNP leadership is of the opinion that the advantages that the party enjoys at present will erode considerably over time. If elections are delayed beyond the end of 2025 or early 2026, the BNP may not be able to achieve its goal of sweeping the polls.
But Yunus, in league with the leaders of the ADSM — some of them are part of his de facto cabinet, is not obliging the BNP and has refused to come up with a concrete roadmap for polls, as is being consistently demanded by the BNP.
Yunus said a few weeks ago that elections can be held between the end of 2025 and the first half of 2026. But he added a vital qualification: the timing of the elections will depend on political consensus and also the extent of reforms in the electoral process.
This condition, the BNP believes, is a ploy to postpone elections. Yunus and his ‘advisers’ have started preparing the ground and will cite lack of political consensus and non-completion of electoral reforms to put off the elections.
Why Yunus Wants to Postpone Elections
Yunus, the BNP suspects, plans to put off elections because of two reasons:
One, Yunus and the ADSM leaders want to hold on to power for as long as possible.
Two, the ADSM leaders who are in the process of floating a political party want to give that party enough time to take root before holding elections. The BNP firmly believes that Yunus is supporting this plan wholeheartedly.
“Various moves and machinations are being made currently to keep the BNP from coming to power. That is why Muhammad Yunus is not spelling out in clear terms a definite time frame for holding elections,” Masud Ahmed Talukder, the BNP’s international affairs secretary, told
Swarajya over the phone from Dhaka.
A New Political Party
The ADSM and the Jatiyo Nagorik Committee (JNC), which was formed in the aftermath of the July 2024 mass uprising, have announced plans to spawn a new political party by next month.
This new party will obviously take time to set itself up organisationally by enrolling members, setting up branches all across the country, gathering resources, and setting a clear political agenda.
“It is quite obvious that Muhammad Yunus and the ADSM leaders who are advisers in the interim government want to postpone elections till the new ‘king’s party’ establishes itself. Yunus and his colleagues in the interim government are using the excuse of reforms to postpone elections indefinitely, and that is not acceptable to us,” BNP vice-chairman Osman Faroque told
Swarajya.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was more forthright. “This (the Yunus-led interim government) is an unelected government and so it cannot stay in power for long. Elections cannot be delayed on the excuse of carrying out reforms,” he said.
“The interim government was established with the express mandate of carrying out basic electoral reforms necessary to hold free and fair elections before overseeing parliamentary elections. Only an elected government and the Jatiya Sansad (Bangladesh’s parliament) can carry out major reforms in the country’s Constitution, judiciary, administration, etc. Carrying out major reforms is not the job of the interim government,” Alamgir told
Swarajya.
Alamgir, who is known to be close to the BNP’s acting chairman, Tarique Rahman, has already warned that his party would give a call to people to take to the streets if a firm roadmap for elections is not announced soon.
Shaukat Mahmud, another vice president of the BNP, told
Swarajya that it is morally and ethically wrong on the part of Yunus to support the formation of a new political party.
“Yunus is the chief adviser to an interim government that’s meant to be completely apolitical and has a limited mandate. To support the formation of a new political party and keep making excuses to put off elections till the new party is ready to face elections is very wrong and unacceptable. People of Bangladesh understand the games that Yunus is playing,” said BNP standing committee member Salahuddin Ahmed.
The BNP has also not taken kindly to the suggestion by Yunus that the voting age be reduced to 17 years.
“A committee has been set up to recommend electoral reforms. It is the job of that committee to suggest reforms. It doesn’t behove the chief adviser to offer suggestions before the committee has submitted its recommendations,” said Alamgir.
The BNP views this suggestion (of lowering the voting age to 17) as another ploy to delay elections because such a step will mean drawing up fresh electoral rolls that will take a long time.
Anti-BNP Moves by Yunus
The BNP is also unhappy with the manner in which the interim government is handling political cases in courts.
While all cases filed by the Hasina government against Yunus have been quickly withdrawn, cases are still pending against BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia and her son, and acting chairperson, Rahman.
“Some advisers have been making irresponsible statements blaming the BNP for the state of the country. We know of a move being made to equate the BNP with the Awami League. That won’t work,” Alamgir added.
In early November last year, the BNP secretary general had told
Swarajya that his party was aware of moves being made by some in the ADSM and the interim government to “force the BNP out of the political arena” under a ‘minus two’ formula...
The ‘minus two’ formula means banning the two major political parties — the BNP and the AL — from active politics in order to clean up the messy political arena in Bangladesh.
This formula was first mooted when the Bangladesh army-backed caretaker government, led by Fakruddin Ahmed, clung on to power for two years (January 2007 to January 2009), until it was forced to hold elections after sustained countrywide protests.
BNP Headed for a Showdown With Yunus and Islamists
While the BNP has been vocal in its criticism of Yunus and some leaders of the ADSM, the latter have not responded publicly.
But, says political analyst and commentator Sadaqat Ali, it is only a matter of time before an acrimonious war of words breaks out between the BNP and Yunus, who is getting bolder by the day.
“Yunus has kept quiet so far because he wanted to avoid a public confrontation with the BNP before rallying support for himself. But that won’t continue for long because he has obtained the support of the Islamists and others. He will hit back at the BNP soon,” Ali, a former faculty of Dhaka University, told
Swarajya.
The BNP is also headed for a confrontation with its former ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami. That’s because the Jamaat has chosen to align itself with Yunus and support the latter’s game plan of postponing elections.
Bangladesh’s Islamists have rallied behind Yunus and, in exchange, have received a
carte blanche to further Islamise the country and also carry out attacks on religious minorities.
BNP leaders have started lashing out at the Jamaat, with the most stringent takedown coming a couple of days ago from BNP’s senior joint secretary general, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, who questioned the Jamaat’s role in the 1971 liberation war.
It is well known that the Jamaat sided with the West Pakistani forces in 1971. The Jamaat not only opposed the liberation of East Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh but also helped the West Pakistani forces in the horrific genocide of Bengalis (both Muslims and Hindus).
By swerving the spotlight on its shameful past, the BNP is effectively putting the Jamaat on the defensive.
But the Jamaat, which has considerable support among the poorer and more radicalised sections of Muslims in rural areas, is sure to hit back at the BNP soon.
The Jamaat’s preferred way of taking on its opponents is through street fights. Thus, say analysts, physical confrontations between the Jamaat and BNP cadres can erupt in many parts of the country.
With the interim government sure to side with the Jamaat and use state machinery — the police and security forces — to contain the BNP, Bangladesh will descend into another round of violence and chaos.
What This Means for India
Soon after the downfall of the Hasina government, New Delhi reversed its policy of non-engagement with the BNP and reached out to the party leadership.
The leadership reciprocated, and not just because it knows that it will need New Delhi’s support to take on Yunus, the ADSM, and the Islamists.
Ties between New Delhi and the BNP are on an even keel now. The BNP leadership has issued firm guarantees that, unlike in the past, it will protect India’s interests and ensure that anti-India forces do not gain ground in Bangladesh.
Thus, it is in India’s interests to back the BNP in its fight with Yunus, the ADSM, and the Islamists.
This fight will plunge Bangladesh into more chaos and put Yunus and his camp on the backfoot, more so since Western powers, especially those who have installed Yunus in power, will become wary of Bangladesh slipping into chaos that can be leveraged by Islamists to increase their influence.
Yunus will, thus, come under a lot of pressure internally, as well as from outside (especially the West), to announce elections and hand over power to a democratically elected government.
India’s interest lies in seeing the backs of Yunus and his fellow advisers, who are now wielding power without any accountability, and also in the BNP coming to power in Bangladesh by defeating not only the Islamists but also the ‘king’s party’ that will be formed next month.
