report in Prothom Alo, Nov 23, 2023
Bangladesh Kalyan Party’s chairman Syed Mohammad Ibrahim on Wednesday announced launching a new alliance ‘Jukto Front’ and joining the forthcoming 12th parliamentary election. GM Quader-led Jatiya Party (JaPa) also informed the media of its decision to join the election in the afternoon.

Sources said, in the next few days many parties, including several smaller Islamic parties, will change their decision and make announcements of contesting the elections under the partisan government.

However, there has been little progress in the projection that several prominent leaders from the de facto opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) would break away with the party and contest the election joining the Trinamool BNP and Bangladesh Nationalist Movement (BNM), known as king’s parties.

Sources said the higher echelon of the government is not happy with the situation. That is why they have been thinking about deferring the date of submission of nomination papers to encourage a few active BNP leaders and few more parties to contest the election.

Khelafat Majlish (Wall Clock) and Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan (Banyan Tree) will hold their majlish-e-shura meetings on Friday and Saturday respectively.

Sources said the two parties will take decisions whether to contest or not in the upcoming parliamentary elections there.

The two registered political parties with the election commission (EC) are members of a five-party alliance ‘Samomona Islami Dalsomuha’ (like-minded Islamic parties).

The alliance held its last meeting on Tuesday. Following the meeting, they sent a release to the media saying that in no way a free and fair election is possible under the current situation. In this context, there is no scope of joining the election ignoring the people’s opinion.

However, the next day some of the alliance members hinted about changing their decision. Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan is one of those.

Speaking to Prothom Alo on Wednesday night, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan nayeb-e-amir Mujibur Rahman Hamidi said, “No such decision has been made that we won’t join the election. Mainly the ongoing political situation was discussed in the meeting that day (Tuesday). We shall assess the situation and take decision in this regard.”
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