Islami Oikya Jote today quit the BNP-led 20-party alliance for what it said organisational interest.

The party’s Chairman Abdul Latif Nezami announced the move today at its convention and said: “It is time to strengthen our own party… this was inevitable.”

“Now it is necessary to unite the Islamist parties and Islamic scholars in the political field,” said Nezami, who was reinstated as the chairman of the party at the convention.

Besides, hours into the announcement of Islami Oikya Jote’s quitting the BNP-led 20-party alliance, a faction of the Islamist party declared that it would remain with the coalition.

A faction of Islami oikya Jote declared that it would remain with the coalition, hours into the announcement of the Islamist party's quitting the BNP-led 20-party alliance. Photo: Star/ Prabir Barua Chowdhury

The faction headed by Abdul Rakib, who was a senior vice chairman of the party until it’s quitting the alliance, made the announcement at a press conference held at the 20-party alliance chief Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office around 4:00pm.

Though a number of Oikya Jote leaders told The Daily Star that the decision was motivated under pressure from the government, Nezami said it had nothing to do with the government.

The Oikya Jote leaders also refrained from attending the last BNP-hosted rally on January 5, at the second anniversary of last general elections that BNP observed as “death of democracy day”.

Oikya Jote was holding its convention at Engineers Institute.

Tonight, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will sit with leaders of “Islami Oikya Jote” tonight at her Gulshan office at 8:00pm, Sayrul Kabir Khan, a member of Khaleda’s media wing, told The Dialy Star.