Bangladesh News

The BNP faction led by expelled secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan holds a meeting in the city today to assert its sway over the party councillors.

Insiders said the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) members and former lawmakers would meet in preparation for a council as soon as possible to settle the leadership issue.

To be followed by iftar, the meeting will be held at a convention centre in Gulshan at 2:00pm.

The number of NEC members in the BNP stands at 251 while 196 lawmakers represented the party in the last parliament. Some of the former lawmakers are members of the NEC at the same time as they are either president or general secretary of different district units.

“It will be an informal meeting where the leaders will be able to speak their mind,” said Ashraf Hossain, expelled joint secretary general. He told The Daily Star yesterday that some 300 leaders might attend the meeting.

Leaders said Bhuiyan would brief the partymen about the latest developments and explain the initiatives that he has taken in response to those.

He would also collect signatures of the councillors calling for a “demand meeting of the BNP”. Signatures of at least one-third of 251 executive committee members are required to convene the meeting in the event of the chairperson’s not consenting.

Bhuiyan, also a former LGRD and Cooperative minister, recently told reporters that the party council would decide who to lead the party and run the headquarters at Naya Paltan that has been kept locked even after partial withdrawal of the ban on indoor politics.

Meanwhile, Brig Gen (retd) Hannan Shah, who recently announced that they (pro-Khaleda group) would arrange a grassroots level leaders’ meeting in the capital after the Ramadan, yesterday raised question about the source of money being spent by the Bhuiyan group in arranging the meet.

“Nobody can hold such a huge gathering using money from their own purse. I hope the Anti-Corruption Commission will look into the matter,” he told reporters at his Mohakhali residence in the capital.

Identifying himself as the ‘chief co-ordinator’ of the BNP, Hannan said he hopes leaders and workers down to the grassroots level would be invited to any meeting to be held in the name of the party.

Blaming Bhuiyan for the ouster of former president Badruddoza Chowdhury from the party, he said B Chowdhury was expelled in line with Bhuiyan’s blueprint, as he could not stand any senior leader in the party.

Asked about the meeting between Bhuiyan and Saifur Rahman, Hannan, also an adviser to the BNP chairperson, said the former finance minister would not join hands with the elements harmful to the party. However, things might be different for him now since his two sons stand accused of corruption.