Nahid Islam, one of the coordinators of the anti-discrimination student movement, said that they have no plans to form a political party at the moment. Abolishing the fascist system was part of their new political settlement. That requires a lot of work and political action. They want to formulate the outline of future Bangladesh through discussion and dialogue with the people.
Nahid Islam mentioned all this in a post on Facebook on Friday night. He is an advisor to the Interim Government Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Recently, a Reuters report mentioned the formation of new political organizations of students. In view of this, Nahid Islam said all these things. Meanwhile, coordinator of anti-discrimination student movement’s liaison committee, Mahfuz Abdullah also said the same thing.
Nahid Islam mentioned, ‘Political party formation is not the direction of our popular uprising. At this moment, it is necessary to stand by the families of the injured and martyrs in the coup, to maintain the spirit of the coup and the national unity. The students and the interim government will work towards that goal.
He also mentioned, ‘At this moment we have no plan to form a political party. The students will act as a socio-political force to preserve the spirit of the revolution and the government will work towards restructuring the state according to the aspirations of the people.’
In a statement in this regard, Mahfuz Abdullah said, ‘My statement to Reuters was that we are not thinking about political organizations right now. We are working for the abolition of the fascist system and a new political settlement. Our primary goal is to retain the spirit of mass uprising and consolidate the government. We will work on the outline of the future Bangladesh by talking to various stakeholders of the state and society.
Mahfuz also said, ‘This work will take at least one month. And, Reuters also wrote that after a month it will be decided whether we will join the party or not! However, Reuters made a mistake, they used the word voters instead of citizens. However, we hardly talked about electoral politics. I have written to Krishna Kaushik (Reuters journalist), he may correct it.’
Speaking to Reuters, the coordinator said, ‘The Reuters reporter was repeatedly asking about the two-party structure and whether it would be a political party to go down. As I have said, we want reform of the system, not parties or individuals. So that whichever party comes, it has to be accountable to the people. But, said as if I want minus two. Which is certainly not my intention.’
He said, ‘Our aim now is to direct the political struggle towards constructive work with concrete objectives. Everyone will know what the political structure will be at the appropriate time.’