National Citizen Party convener Nahid Islam on Sunday said that proportional representation movement launched by Jamaat-e-Islami was a ‘calculated political deception’.
He alleged that it was designed to derail the Consensus Commission’s reform process and divert public attention from the broader goal of constitutional restructuring in line with the people’s uprising.
In a Facebook post in the afternoon, the NCP leader said that the core reform demand for establishment of an Upper House based on PR of votes was conceived as a constitutional safeguard.
‘We have sought to build a movement around such a foundational reform and to establish the legal framework of the July Charter through broad based national consensus,’ he said, adding, ‘But Jamaat and its allies hijacked this agenda, reduced it to a technical PR issue and used it as a bargaining tool for their narrow partisan interests. Their motive was never for reform; it was a manipulation.’
Nahid added, ‘Jamaat-e-Islami never engaged in the reform discourse, neither before nor after the July uprising. They offered no substantive proposals, no constitutional vision, and no commitment to a democratic republic.’
‘Their sudden endorsement of reform within the Consensus Commission was not an act of conviction but a tactical infiltration, a political sabotage disguised as reformism.’
‘Now, the people of Bangladesh clearly understand this deception,’ he said, adding, ‘They have awakened to the truth and will no longer be deceived by false reformists or manipulative actors.’
‘Neither the Almighty nor the sovereign people of this land will ever again permit dishonest, opportunistic, and morally bankrupt forces to rule over them,’ said Nahid.
