Staff Reporter:
National Citizen Party (NCP) convener and opposition chief whip Nahid Islam on Sunday urged allies and supporters to prepare for a fresh mass movement saying that the current government will never vol-untarily implement reforms.
Nahid made the remarks while presiding over an view-exchange meeting between July uprising martyrs’ families and July fighters organized by the 11-party alliance at the Diploma Engineers Institution audito-rium in the capital.
“Two years after the mass uprising, we still stand united in the conviction that Bangladesh must be trans-formed through fundamental reforms. And the primary obstacle standing in the way of that transfor-mation is the current government,” Nahid said.
Expressing frustration over the failure of parliamentary processes, he said, “We had hoped that everything would be resolved in parliament. But parliament has been rendered ineffective. We must now prepare for a mass movement. Without it, the government will not implement reforms.”
He, however, stressed that this time the movement must be strategic. “We do not want to fail again or settle for half-success. This time, we will take to the streets with a plan.”
Asserting collective ownership of the reform agenda, the NCP chief said, “Reforms do not belong to any single party, they are a demand for the survival of Bangladesh.”
He pledged that the alliance’s leaders would stand at the frontline of any confrontation. “If bullets come, they will hit our chests first.”
Nahid also accused the BNP government of exploiting the legacy of the July uprising for political legiti-macy. “July martyrs and the wounded are the assets of this nation. We do not want to use them for poli-tics. But the government invokes July fighters and even the spirit of 1971 to legitimize its actions while genuinely embodying neither.”
He further alleged that Bangladesh has been moving backwards since the BNP assumed power. “The BNP reaped the fruits of the mass uprising of the 1990s but discarded the three-alliance roadmap once in power. Even now, they are rejecting the July Charter and the ordinance.”
Senior leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh-led 11-party alliance were also present at the event.
