C T Online Desk: Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmakers on Saturday announced at the party’s divisional rally in Dhaka that all the seven party MPs submitted their letters of resignation from the parliament via email.
Five of the seven BNP lawmakers addressed the mass rally at the Golapbagh ground in Dhaka one after another and announced the decision.
‘We have sent our resignation letters via email. We will submit the resignation letters in person tomorrow [Sunday],’ said BNP lawmaker Rumeen Farhana at the rally.
‘We don’t have any benefit from the continuation as MPs. We joined the parliament to see how much space we get. But it is all the same — being MPs or not. So we have announced our resignation,’ she said.
Another lawmaker Golam Mohammad Sirajul Islam also said that all the seven lawmakers of the party decided to resign from Jatiya Sangsad.
They accused the government of failing in all sectors and of destroying the country’s democratic institutions and supressing the opposition leaders and activists.
Siraj said that they mentioned in their resignation letters that they resigned protesting at the ‘autocratic role’ of the government and snatching people’s rights in various ways.
‘We have decided to resign from the parliament under no influence as it is also our party decision,’ he said.
Besides Siraj and Rumeen, five other lawmakers are Md Aminul Islam of Chapainawabganj-2, Md Harunur Rashid of Chapainawabganj-3, Abdus Sattar of Brahmanbaria-2, Md Mosharraf Hossain of Bogura-4 and Zahidur Rahman of Thakurgaon-3.
Harun was not present at the rally as he was abroad while Sattar did not attend the rally due to his illness, said party leaders.
The BNP earlier asked the lawmakers to resign from the parliament, saying that the party would announce a 10-point charter of demands, including that for the dissolution of the parliament, at the December 10 rally.
The BNP held its 10th and last divisional rally in the capital where the party announced that it would launch a simultaneous movement with other parties against the government and for their demands.
Addressing the rally, BNP vice-chairman Ahmed Azam Khan called on the Jatiya Party, too, to resign from the parliament.
‘You [JP lawmakers] should also resign, resign and join the ranks of the people,’ he said.
The Jatiya Party has 22 MPs.
The Awami League has been in power since 2009.
The ruling party and the government have been refusing to accept the BNP’s main demand — creating a provision for an election-time neutral caretaker administration to oversee the next elections, including the coming one in December 2023 or January 2024.
The two general elections since 2009, when the Awami League returned to power, have been controversial.
In 2014, opposition parties boycotted the polls in protest of the AL government’s decision to repeal the existing provision for a non-partisan caretaker government that was incorporated in the constitution as a safeguard for free and fair elections.
By taking advantage of the boycott, the Awami League remained in power.
In 2018, opposition parties reversed their course to participate in the election, but the AL-led coalition secured 96 per cent of the JS seats and more than 80 per cent of the votes cast amid widespread allegations of rigging and violence.
About BNP vice-chairman Ahmed Azam’s call on the Jatiya Party to resign from the parliament, JP secretary general Mujibul Haque Chunnu told New Age that the JP had no relation with the resignation of BNP MPs or the ‘theory’ for the movement.
‘What we will do will be decided in our party forum. When the BNP was in power, they carried out repression on us more brutally than now,’ he added.
