Sylhet BNP faction's 'no' to Ilyas Ali's committee
A large section of the leaders and activists of Sylhet city BNP have demanded cancellation of the newly announced city BNP committee within seven days.
After announcement of committee by the central secretary general of the party on Friday, followers of central organising secretary and former lawmaker M Ilyas Ali, also Sylhet district BNP president, welcomed it while their rivals, known as followers of late finance minister M Saifur Rahman, opposed.
At a press conference held at Sylhet Press Club on Saturday afternoon, BNP central committee member Dr Shahriar Hossain Chowdhury, also former convener of Sylhet city BNP, read out a written statement, announcing that agitation programme would be launched if the new committee is not cancelled within seven days.
"BNP Vice chairman and former foreign Secretary Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury and central organising secretary and former lawmaker M Ilyas Ali, also district BNP president, had influenced some of the central leaders to form the so-called new city committee with the people who had played against party interest in the recent past," said Dr Shahriar, who has been made a member of the five-men advisory body of the new city BNP.
"The man [MA Haque] who had lost the Sylhet mayoral polls has been awarded with the position of city BNP convener while another person, who became fourth and lost security money in the ward councillorship election, had been made city BNP general secretary. Besides, they worked against the BNP candidate in the last parliament polls," goes the statement.
"In line with the directions from the central committee and constitutional provisions, we formed the city committee through a council in presence of representatives from the 27 ward committees on December 27 of 2009 and sent it to the central committee for approval. But ignoring all those a different committee has been announced," Shahriar said.
City ward Councillor Rezaul Hasan Lodi and Abdul Waseh Chowdhury Zuber, who have been made organising secretary and office secretary respectively in the new committee, said at the press conference that they would resign from the committee if the new committee, which includes 'unwanted people', is not cancelled.
The BNP central committee on June 9 this year formed a 13-men convening committee with Dr Shahriar Hossain Chowdhury as convener and asked them to form the full committee through a conference. Although they sat unitedly at first, soon division developed and the two factions formed separate committees on June 25 and June 29.
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