Result of upcoming Bangladesh polls has implications for India

DHAKA:The debate in Bangladesh is no longer about elections and who will rule the country with the world’s third highest Muslim population. The big question is whether one of Asia’s youngest nations will be able to preserve its secular fabric? With over 154 MPs elected unopposed to the 300-member Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament) from the ruling alliance in the absence of opponents, the January 5, 2014, elections will largely be a formality when polling will be held for the rest of the 146 seats.

While the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) under Khaleda Zia called for a 72-hour strike from Tuesday to demand a neutral caretaker government to oversee the polls, the Awami League-led government is doing its bit to thwart any possible violence by Jamaat-e-Islami, a BNP ally.

“This is a repeat of 1971 when forces opposed to the creation of Bangladesh employed all means to suppress the independence movement. These forces are again determined to alter the secular identity of the country,” Awami League MP and theatre personality Asaduzzaman Noor told ET.




His car was allegedly attacked by Jamaat supporters in his constituency on December 14, but he managed to escape. As many as 100 people have been killed over the last 20 days across Bangladesh due to rising violence.

“The issue is no longer about election: it is a final battle between the forces who favoured creation of Bangladesh and those who opposed it. This had to happen some day as the agenda had remained unfinished in 1971 when war criminals were not brought to justice,” said Noor.

But BNP chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is convinced that elections cannot be free and fair, especially with Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League in power. BNP leaders also described the event of MPs getting elected unopposed as “ultimate deceit and treachery”. Ambassador Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, BNP Vice-Chairman, told ET that bizarre charges have been levelled against his party leaders. “While many of them have been arrested, others have gone underground. The entire system is being manipulated and this election is nothing but a farce.”

Assuring India that BNP will not encourage terrorism and crossborder terror groups, Chowdhury said, “Jamaat is also a concern for us. We have an electoral arrangement with them, not an ideological one since they control 3 per cent of the country’s vote. War crimes trial will continue if BNP comes to power but the process has to be fair. It was Awami League which ironically paved the way for Jamaat by joining hands with them in the mid 1980s, and then again in 1995-96.”

But a senior Awami League leader said on Tuesday that there’s no chance for the BNP joining the January 5 elections. “Because the January 5 poll schedule has been finalised and the process has gone quite far, it may not be possible for BNP to join this election,” said Awami League presidium member Obaidul Quader.