Dhaka, Jan 25: Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League would not be allowed to participate in elections, a key adviser of Muhammad Yunus’s interim government said on Saturday.
“The elections will be contested among pro-Bangladesh groups only,” said Mahfuz Alam, a top leader of the Anti-Discrimination Movement, which spearheaded the mass uprising that toppled Hasina’s Awami League regime and forced her to flee the country on August 5 last year.
Addressing a street rally at central Chandpur district, Alam said only former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islam and other “pro-Bangladesh” groups would carry on their politics in the country. He added that either of these “will establish future governance through a fair electoral process”.
“But Awami League’s rehabilitation will not be allowed in this country,” said Alam, a de facto minister without portfolio in Chief Adviser Yunus’s administration.
Alam stated that no election would take place until “minimum reforms” were implemented and institutions, allegedly destroyed by the “fascist Hasina government,” were restructured.
Initially appointed by Yunus as a special assistant in his government, Alam later served as an adviser in his interim cabinet.
At a function on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last year, Yunus introduced Alam as the “main brain” behind the “meticulously” designed student-led movement that toppled the past regime.
The Awami League has been virtually out of the open political landscape since August 5, 2024, with most of its leaders and Hasina’s cabinet members either in jail on murder and other criminal charges or on the run at home and abroad. (PTI)
B’deshi media slams Yunus govt for keeping border guard chief’s India visit secret
Dhaka, Jan 25: The interim government in Bangladesh led by Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, already facing global scrutiny for its ongoing treatment of the minorities, especially Hindus, is now drawing flak over keeping under wraps the visit of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Major General Mohammad Ashraful Islam Siddique to India, next month.
The country’s media outlets have slammed the current regime for not revealing details about Siddique’s New Delhi visit for a border conference between the Director Generals of BGB and the Border Security Force (BSF), scheduled to take place in New Delhi mid-February. Reacting to reports published by the local media about the scheduled border conference, the BGB stated that there is “no secrecy here” and “no attempt” being made to maintain secrecy.
“The news published in some media outlets in the country under the title ‘BGB chief’s India visit shrouded in secrecy, a storm of criticism on social media’ has come to the attention of the BGB. The news is tarnishing the image of the BGB and also creating confusion in the public mind,” read a statement issued by the Border Guard Bangladesh on its social media page. (IANS)