Waiting to see the next scene

Opinion

The national parliamentary elections were held in Bangladesh. The nationalist party BNP won a two-thirds majority. But a few days before the election, social media was completely under the control of Jamaat-e-Islami. Many were worried that Jamaat would come to power with an absolute majority. This idea was not based only on social media. In all the public universities in Bangladesh where student parliament elections were held last year, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Chhatra Shibir, won a landslide victory.

Jamaat has been able to establish BNP as a ‘party of extortion’. Jamaat has shown much more prudence than BNP in the selection of candidates. Above all, Jamaat has its own economic power. Which was almost intact even during the 17-year rule of Awami League. Moreover, during Yunus’ one and a half year rule, their institutions have developed in a flourishing manner. Their loyal officials are sitting in important positions in the government.

They have been able to demonstrate the discipline and economic strength of the Jamaat party in the election campaign. Moreover, the head of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Shafiqur Rahman, was making such moderate statements that their hardline Islamic form was being perceived as somewhat light by everyone. As a result, many were optimistic about Jamaat’s absolute victory, while many were apprehensive.

I was among the worried ones. Because Jamaat is a group of traitors and goal-oriented fanatics. They are used to doing all kinds of tricks to come to power. If they come to power, their appearance will be terrifying. They are basically a group of people. If they come to power, let alone minorities, no one outside their organization will be under the watchful eye of the state.

But in some cases, Jamaat’s mask was exposed at the last minute, which had a negative impact on the election. Among them, the reduction of women’s working hours to 5, offensive tweets about working women before the election, and finally the arrest of a Jamaat district chief with 7.4 million taka in cash on the day before the election were all bad news for Jamaat.

Still, after the birth of Jamaat, Jamaat has never won more seats in this region than this time. Never before has Jamaat won more than 18 seats. It is necessary to analyze where Jamaat got these seats. Interestingly, Jamaat got very few seats in isolation. Where they did get seats, they or their alliance partners got almost the entire district’s seats.

First come the districts of North Bengal, known as the poor and illiterate regions of Bangladesh. The Jamaat alliance won all the seats in Kurigram, Rangpur, Nilphamari, Rangpur, and Gaibandha. The people of these regions are called ‘mofiz’ by other regions because of their simplicity. They may be poor, but honest. Jamaat has done quite well in these regions by offering them a ticket to heaven. There used to be a terrible drought in this region during the dry season. It was called Manga. People lived a very difficult life in that. The Hasina government has given them relief from that. Rangpur is Hasina’s in-laws’ home again.

Former military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad had made unprecedented progress in the agricultural sector of the region through the Teesta Barrage Project. All the seats in the region were once won by his party, the Jatiya Party. So Hasina did not give much attention to these seats. And after Ershad’s death, the Jatiya Party became weak. The strategic Jamaat occupied this vacant space.

Then there are the western border districts. West Bengal has good connectivity with these districts. The main livelihood of the people of these regions is smuggling. But surprisingly, they are extremely anti-India. BNP did well in these regions because of this anti-India attitude. Even those with Jamaat sentiments voted for BNP to stop Awami League. Now that Awami League is gone, the votes have gone to Jamaat box. The districts are Chapainawabganj on the other side of Murshidabad, Chuadanga on the other side of Gede border, Satkhira on the other side of Bashirhat, Jhenaidah and Jessore adjacent to Chuadanga, Kushtia and Meherpur on the other side of Nadia.

With the rise of Jamaat-e-Islam, the Jatiya Party, known as the B-team of the Awami League, disappeared from the scene. Former military ruler Ershad, who was in jail after resigning in a mass uprising in 1990, won 35 seats in the 1991 elections. The Jatiya Party did not win a single seat this time. On the other hand, the youth of the NCP, the party that led the 24 riots, won 6 seats. However, their rhetoric before the elections made it seem that they would form the government. They even announced the name of their potential prime minister.

Poet and lyricist Marzuk Russell has said a great thing about them, writing, “NCP leaders are like puppies. There were many times to be, there are only a few times to vote!”

However, regarding the most significant aspect of this election, Zahid Raihan wrote on Facebook, “Thank you, Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. AMM Nasir Uddin. Along with the landslide victory that is universally accepted, this saying will also be written in golden letters in the history of Bangladesh that a national election can be passed even with zero casualties.”

Apart from arson in a Hindu village in Birganj, Dinajpur, no major incident was reported. The newly elected BNP MP immediately rushed there. BNP chief Tarique Zia immediately appealed to everyone to remain calm. He said that the joy of victory is glorified when the losers are safe with the winner.

But on October 1, 2001, when the BNP won the last election with an absolute majority, a hellish riot began across the country that night. The fire of that pyre burned for several months. Hundreds of villages were emptied of Hindus.

Many say that the violence happened after August 5, 2004. There is nothing left. This is one aspect, another aspect is that this time BNP got Hindu votes. This vote bank of Awami League voted for BNP in a divided manner to protect the spirit of the Liberation War. As a result, there was no need to attack minorities.

Although the elections are over, the election game is not over. Two-thirds of the votes have been cast in favor of implementing the July reform proposal. If the Yunus government wants to implement it, it can stay for another 6 months. According to this reform proposal, the four basic principles of the Liberation War are to be changed. There will be a bicameral parliament. If the upper house is formed proportionally to the votes, Jamaat will move from the lower house to the upper house in a good position. Then we have to wait and see what drama they will play with the July Charter.

During the election festivities, the people of Bangladesh may have temporarily forgotten the country’s largest political party, the Awami League. That is not to say that the party has become irrelevant. This incredible rise of BNP is because the voters of this party voted for the Liberation War in this election. It remains to be seen what the Awami League does in the new democratic environment.

Overall, there are still many games left.

I am ending the article with a Facebook status by Sudipto Biswas Bibhu, now it is time to say. Hindus did not commit dishonesty. It is not in their blood. BNP won a landslide victory in Hindu-dominated constituencies. I am waiting to see how BNP retaliates. BNP may forget but Hindus in Bangladesh have not forgotten. After the landslide victory in the 2001 elections, the BNP-Jamaat alliance celebrated its victory by committing unlimited torture on Hindus. It was the Durga Puja season then. There was not a single police station left in Bangladesh where idols were not broken.

These cannot be erased from history, from the memories of Hindus. Yet Mirza Fakhrul, known as a decent person of BNP, flatly denied this issue in an interview given to Al Jazeera. He called the communal oppression a political attack.

Even in his much-discussed election manifesto, Tarek Zia did not utter a single sentence that reassured or frightened religious and ethnic minorities.

I will say these things again and again.

The minorities of Bangladesh are the wives of the poor. The sisters of all. They look to everyone for help, hoping to get a little assurance, hoping to get a little protection.

Harinarayan Das
13.02.2026