BNP to wrap up councils by year-end
With the national election in mind, BNP has intensified its efforts to complete the district councils as soon as possible and beef up the party's organisational strength.
It has so far completed councils in three districts -- Nilphamari, Manikganj and Rangamati. Four more districts are queued up for this month, party leaders said.
The party is looking to complete councils in all the 81 organisational districts by the end of this year so that it can hold the national council early next year.
"Now we are trying to wrap up the district councils in the shortest possible time …," Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, senior joint secretary general of the party, told The Daily Star yesterday.
Party leaders said holding district councils is complex and time-consuming as there is a lot of going back and forth in forming complete committees.
Explaining the process, they said that first a Thana convener committee is formed, which then forms a union convening committee. The union convening committee then forms a complete ward committee.
After the ward committee, a union committee is formed and then a Thana committee.
The district committeeis formed after Thana, municipality, union and ward councils.
"It is a complex and democratic process. So, it is taking time but we will do it by the year end," said Fazlul Huq Milon, BNP organising secretary (Dhaka Division).
He said in Dhaka division, there are 10 organisational districts. The committee of one has been formed and the rest will be completed soon.
In Rajshahi division, there are nine organisational districts, of which all ward and union committees have already been formed.
"We are expecting to complete all the thana committees by the end of this month. After that, we will start holding district councils," Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu, Rajshahi divisional organising secretary, said.
Although BNP is yet to decide whether it will contest the 2023 national polls, its focus this year is to complete the party reorganising process and be ready for both a movement and elections.
The rationale behind reorganising is that the party wants to be in a stronger position from where it can mount pressure on the government to hold the polls under a non-partisan interim government -- a demand it has been making since the system was abolished a decade ago.
"The main focus is to restore democracy and return voting rights to the people. The revamping will continue and at the same time, the movement for restoring democracy will go on," said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of the party.
BNP leaders said that if the government pay heed to their demands, they will take to the streets.
The party has also been holding various programmes in different district and divisional headquarters on pressing issues like the price hike of daily essentials.
"We want to restore the election-time neutral government and for that, the reorganisation of the party and the movement will go on simultaneously," said Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, BNP standing committee member.
The BNP had boycotted the January 5 polls in 2014 but later took part in the 2018 election that was marred by ballot stuffing. It got only a handful of seats in parliament.
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