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Download PDF Both factions of BNP are planning to discuss with other four-party alliance leaders the matter of sitting down in a dialogue with the Election Commission (EC) regarding electoral reforms.
“I have contacted our alliance partners informally and we will sit with them to discuss the issue following a decision in our party forum,” BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain told reporters yesterday at a news briefing in his NAM apartment in the capital.
Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, the expelled secretary general, also said yesterday that his faction too is talking to the four party alliance leaders, albeit unofficially.
“We will finalise our decision after consulting the matter within the party and with others after we receive the invitation letter from the EC,” Bhuiyan told reporters in his Gulshan residence following his return from Singapore.
Delwar Hossain said he wants to have party meetings in the party office instead of in a hotel or under a canopy.
Expressing doubts about the EC’s methodology of work, he said the role of the commission is not yet clear to them.
“They [the EC] are frequently changing their position regarding BNP while they should understand that there is only one BNP in the country,” Delwar said adding that they will discuss the issue within the alliance once an environment conducive to holding an election is created.
“His [Bhuiyan's] return to the country is not a threat to the party,” Delwar remarked.
District leaders from Narayanganj and Chapainawabganj who had come to pay a courtesy call on Delwar, greeted the newly appointed secretary general after the briefing and urged him to take disciplinary actions against those members of the party who had sided with the expelled leaders.
Expelled secretary general Bhuiyan, however, tried to debunk the rumour of his going to Singapore with a political agenda, by labelling the claim as ‘false and fabricated’.
Earlier, some news reports were published claiming that Mannan Bhuiyan stayed in posh Park Hotel while in Singapore and that he attended an iftar party organised by Narayan Saha, who is known as an Awami League activist.
“I didn’t stay in Park Hotel nor did I file any GD in Singapore for my personal safety,” Bhuiyan, who had gone to Singapore on Sept 16 for a cardiac check up, told the reporters.
“I stayed in Orchard Hotel in Singapore where the doctors said my condition is well,” he said.
Replying to an allegation raised by pro-khaleda leaders he said, “I didn’t have any meeting there neither did I travel in a BMW. And I didn’t attend any iftar party of a Narayan Babu.”
He, however, said he met Awami League Presidium Member Amir Hossain Amu at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where Amu’s wife is undergoing treatment, but claimed that they did not discuss politics.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
Mr Mannan Bhuiyan must admit that he is no longer General Secretary of BNP and doesn’t represent the party anymore, the way party Chief has appointed Mr Bhuiyan, similar way has been sucked.
Election commissioner must accept the situation and cooperate with the newly appointed General Secretary Khandaker Delwar Hussein for the future and let their office to be re-open.