BJP cuts ties with BNP-led alliance

Bangladesh Jatiya Party Chairman Andaleeve Rahman Partha yesterday announced that his party left the BNP-led alliance amid disputes over the BNP’s decision to join parliament.

“My party is no longer a part of the alliance,” Partha told The Daily Star last night.

Partha’s BJP joined the BNP-led alliance in 1999 to strengthen the opposition against the then Awami League government. In 2001 election, the BNP-led alliance won a landslide victory, but lost in 2008. The BNP-led four-party alliance expanded to a 20-party alliance in 2012.

People were surprised when two Gonoforum MPs-elect and four BNP MPs-elect took oath, he said in a statement.

“None of the parties [of the alliance], except the BNP, has any sort of involvement with the decision…. Through this oath-taking, the BNP and Oikyafront lost the moral right to reject the farcical December 30 election,” it added.

Since the formation of Jatiya Oikyafront, political activities of the BNP-led alliance became stagnant, he alleged.