Khaleda Zia’s Death Is Helping BNP In February 12 Polls Through Sympathy Wave

In the neighbouring Bangladesh, the political developments take unpredictable course many times, but the latest alliance between the NCP, the party of the students body which led the July Revolution and the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, has shocked the progressive forces who supported the uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina led Awami League government on August5, 2024.

The national elections are due on February 12 this year and the nomination process will be over by January 21. So in the next few days, intense negotiations will be held between the two contradictory combinations for finalizing candidates for the 300 seats of the Bangladesh Parliament. The alliance is still under fire from a section of secular minded activists of NCP. This has resulted in lot of resignations, but the core NCP leadership is going ahead with the sharing of seats with Jamaat.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s death on December 31 after ailing for long has led to sympathy wave among the common Bangladeshi citizens spreading across party affiliations. This was evident at the massive turn out of people at the funeral and the way the entire country grieved on her passing away at a time, people were talking of the return of the BNP to power after February 12 polls with Khaleda Zia as Prime Minister again.

Khaleda’s son Tarique Rahman, is now the chairman of the BNP and he is the Prime Minister face of BNP which is planning to submit nominations to its candidates to more than 90 per cent of the seats leaving a few seats to its allies including independents. Many NCP leaders who are dissatisfied with alliance with Jamaat have approached the BNP leadership for tickets. Tarique will be taking final decision on that. He himself has filed nomination from three constituencies.

As on January 1, the opinion polls and surveys have placed BNP in a dominant position followed by Jamaat. In earlier polls, the NCP got around 6 to 8 per cent. That was why the NCP lobbied with Jamaat for alliance as the combination of the two can pose some challenge to the BNP supremacy. But the political analysts in Dhaka point out this Jamaat-NCP alliance may fail as the NCP supporters may not vote for Jamaat candidates and the Jamaat supporters are certainly not voting for the NCP candidates. The two parties are so different in their approaches that for the commoners outside political affiliations, this alliance is a big opportunist combination.

The NCP leaders who are in favour of alliance say that this alliance is based only to fight February 12 polls to take on BNP, the NCP has not diluted its programme, it sticks to its July Charter and will pursue that after the polls are over. That NCP is not getting approval of the people despite its great role in the movement to oust the Hasina government, is known to its leadership. If it fights alone, it will be decimated, so it has aligned with the Jamaat to get respectable number of seats, but in the process, the Party has turned itself into a partner with a Party which has a big role in fanning communal tensions against the minorities in Bangladesh. Only anti-India approach has united both, otherwise, they have nothing in common. NCP students in fact gave protection to minorities when they were attacked by Jamaat supporters in the beginning after the fall of the Hasina government.

In fact, just not for Bangladesh, for South Asia also, the disorientation of the students movement which led to the founding of the National Citizen Party (NCP) in February 2025, is a another case of lost path of the youth movement in a country in this sub continent.NCP announced a transformative programme at its founding conference and it aspired to emerge as a progressive alternative in the religion infested politics of Bangladesh after Hasina’s ouster. The NCP offered ample rhetoric about administrative reforms, anti corruption and transparency in the functioning of the government

Many left leaning elements are still a part of the NCP though some of them have left in the recent weeks. But for those who really look for an alternative, the present NCP has shattered their dreams by aligning with Jamaat without making all efforts to publicise its own programme based on July charter to the people and seek votes for them on that basis. For the people who were looking for a real alternative in Bangladesh, there is nothing to look for. The politics will go back to the old conservative traditional parties after the February 12 polls.

Bangladesh’s leading English daily Daily Star candidly says “So, what exactly does this alliance say to the voters who believed in NCP’s promise of “new politics”? For one, it suggests that ideological clarity was always negotiable. If the initial attraction to NCP for many was its youthful energy and commitment to break with the past, those qualities now look to be filtered through the very traditional political calculus it once critiqued. The youthful supporters it once courted are now left with a choice between cynicism and disillusionment, watching as the party they backed moves into a coalition with a group whose historical baggage remains contentious.

This alliance is not merely an electoral arrangement. It is symbolic. It tells voters that electoral arithmetic matters more than narrative coherence. That might make sense to party strategists upset with internal dissent and resignations, but it does not necessarily translate into fresh trust on the ground.”

NCP’s leaders, understandably, are saying that coalition building is part and parcel of democratic politics. They say that in a fragmented landscape, working with like-minded forces is pragmatic. They stress that the pact is strictly for electoral purposes. Indeed, an NCP statement insisted it joined the alliance only because it “cannot contest the election alone” under current conditions.

NCP is hoping that it will again regain its earlier glory after the elections since the traditional parties coming to power will not have the right vision to build a new Bangladesh. This win seems farfetched as the trends show. For Bangladesh politics, it is a big tragedy and for this, NCP’s top leadership has to own responsibility. (IPA Service)