Staff Reporter:
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami yesterday proposed that both national and local government elections be held under a non-partisan caretaker government.
“Our proposal is that both national and local elections must take place under a caretaker government,” Jamaat’s Nayeb-e-Ameer Dr Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher told reporters during the lunch break of the second round of talks with the National Consensus Commission.
Jamaat-e-Islami also proposed amending Article 70 of the Constitution to allow MPs to vote beyond their respective party lines except on issues related to finance bill, vote of no confidence and constitu-tional amendment.
But BNP, in its talks with the Commission, supported allowing MPs to vote beyond the party lines ex-cept the four matters that include the three matters and also issues of national importance.
When his attention was drawn on Jamaat’s stance regarding Article 70, Taher said, “We’ve shared our views on the three proposed exceptions regarding Article 70.”
The second day of the second round of talks began at 11am with Commission Chairman Prof Ali Riaz in the chair. Nearly 30 parties, including BNP, Jamaat, and the National Citizen Party (NCP), joined Tues-day’s session.
On Monday, Chief Adviser and Commission Chairman Prof Muhammad Yunus opened the second phase of the dialogue.
The Consensus Commission started its first round of talks with political parties on March 20 last to forge a national consensus on state reform initiatives undertaken by the interim government.
The Commission held talks with 33 parties and alliances including BNP, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and National Citizen Party (NCP) before concluding the first round of dialogues on May 19 last.
Formed on February 15, 2025, under the leadership of Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus, the Commission was tasked with shaping a unified national stance on critical reforms.
