The BNP will continue to maintain its electoral alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, BNP’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said yesterday.
“The Jamaat is with the BNP as an ally. It will continue to be with BNP in future,” Fakhrul said at a meeting with the leaders and activists of the party's Nilphamari unit, according to news agencies.
However, on the same day Asaduzzaman Ripon, a spokesperson for the BNP, said there was a gulf of ideological differences between the two parties.
“The two parties have formed an electoral alliance, yet Jamaat has its own political ideology,” Ripon, who is the international affairs secretary of BNP, said at a press conference organised at the press conference at its central office at Nayapaltan to refute the prime minister’s statement terming Khaleda Zia “the ameer of Jamaat.”
At a public meeting in Jessore on Saturday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina termed BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia the ameer (chief) of Jamaat.
Calling out the statement as devoid of political decorum, Asaduzzaman said, “I might not call her (the prime minister) the ameer of Jatiya Party, or the chairperson of JP.”
He called upon Awami League to become tolerant and liberal.
Responding to another statement made by Sheikh Hasina that the BNP had made a mistake by not joining the national poll, Asaduzzaman said the BNP did not make any mistakes.
Among others, party’s Office Secretary Shamimur Rahman and Asadul Karim were present.
Jamaat, BNP’s key ally in the 18-party alliance, allegedly perpetrated a great amount of violence across the country. Following the period of political unrest, the BNP was urged at the national and international levels to break ties with the Islamist party.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on January 17, urging the BNP to distance itself from the Jamaat.
On January 20, for the first time since the emergence of the BNP-led 18-party alliance, the BNP held a public rally alone yesterday in Dhaka, apparently keeping its distance from the Jamaat.
