Two days after BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s decision to reconstitute the Dhaka city unit for its failure to build up any resistance against the January 5 polls the committee Convener Sadeque Hossain Khoka yesterday hoped his party would relieve him of his responsibility soon.
His announcement stoked intra-party feud and controversy among the party leaders and activists as many of them think it was Khoka’s “face saving trick”.
Khoka, who was in the helm of Dhaka city BNP for the last 17 years, tried his best to cling to the post and to this end he held a meeting with the BNP chairperson but eventually he failed to manage the party chief, sources said.
Khaleda on March 9 in a standing committee meeting decided to reorganise the city committee.
Party sources said Khoka sat with some of his colleagues on Tuesday night and decided to hold a press conference which the senior leaders of the party disagreed saying it would amount to humiliating party decision.
Three senior leaders of the party said though Khoka would be dropped from the committee his strong grip over it would remain ever strong as no other competent city leaders came to the limelight in more than a decade.
When contacted senior leaders refused to comment but expressed their grievances saying Khoka was trying to linger the reconstitution of the committee by making his announcement public.
“Those who are involved in corrupt politics only they can say like this. He made the announcement to conceal his failure,” Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, a standing committee member said.
Earlier on February 10, Khaleda slammed the city unit leaders for not taking to the street. “When I was evicted from my cantonment residence nobody then opened fire on you but you were not seen on the streets. You have failed,” Khaleda blamed the city leaders.
Khoka at a press briefing said he did not want to stay in the committee and requested the BNP chairperson to reconstitute the city committee.
“I do not want to carry on with the responsibility anymore. I requested Netri (Khaleda) to reconstitute the committee and she will take initiative soon. When I was in jail I sent a message to Madam (Khaleda) to do so with either Mirza Abbas or Abdul Awal Mintoo putting at the helm of the city unit,” Khoka said.
“I believe in democracy. As I am a loyal activist of the party, I do not want the party to remain stagnant and that’s why I will carry on with the role of convener till the reconstitution of the committee,” he said.
On criticism from inside and outside the party for poor performance of city leaders on the street, Khoka defending himself said: “Those people have poor knowledge about politics. Some of our party leaders are making such statements and playing blame game. I think it is not proper party politics.”
Explaining why they failed to build up any resistance on the instruction of the party chief he said: “We fought against Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and autocratic Ershad. This time the government was harsher than even the government of that time. We could not wage any movement because of killing and abduction.”
“It was Khoka’s trick to share the blame of failure on senior leaders,” a senior leader told the Dhaka Tribune.
The city unit was formed on May 14, 2011 with Sadeque Hossain Khoka as its convener and Salam the member secretary. It was asked to form the ward and the thana-level committees within six months.