CA to meet Tarique in London on Friday

Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus is set to meet BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman during his visit to the United Kingdom.

The meeting will take place in a London hotel from 9am to 11am local time on Friday, according to BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Speaking to reporters at the BNP Chairperson’s Office in Dhaka’s Gulshan on Tuesday, he said: “The chief advisor invited our acting chairman. The meeting will be held at the hotel where he [Yunus] is staying.”

Although the meeting was not on the chief advisor’s official itinerary, speculation about it had been brewing in political circles since the trip was announced.

Foreign Secretary Md Ruhul Alam Siddique had said on Jun 4, prior to the visit, that he did not know about any plans for the two leaders to meet.

Yunus left Dhaka for London on Monday evening for a four-day official visit and arrived at Heathrow International Airport around noon Bangladesh time on Tuesday.

Regarding the meeting with the chief advisor, the BNP secretary general said: “Since the chief advisor's visit to London was announced, we'd been discussing the possibility of a meeting [between Yunus and Tarique]. As our party’s acting chairman is there, a meeting could be held there. Now it has been confirmed.”

“Our Standing Committee also held a meeting last night [Monday]. The acting chairman presided over the meeting. He [Tarique] has been formally invited for a meeting on the 13th [Friday] from 9am to 11am London time.”

‘A TURNING POINT IN OVERCOMING POLITICAL CRISIS’

Mirza Fakhrul said the party welcomes the meeting and expressed hope that it can lower political temperature.

“I personally think that, in the recent political context, this [meeting] is a big event. It can be a turning point. If everything goes well, then, undoubtedly, it can be a big turning point.”

“The interim government’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus will meet our acting chairman, who has been running the party for so long, who has been a focal point in Bangladeshi politics and has also played a major role in the student and public uprising. I think the chief advisor’s meeting with him is a big event. It’s a major political event.”

The senior BNP leader believes the meeting is significant not only nationally but also internationally.

"You already know that many discussions are happening among journalists in your newspapers and magazines on various issues. In the meantime, if this meeting is held, many problems can be solved and many things can become easier. A new dimension can be created. There are many possibilities. Now it will depend on our leaders [Yunus and Tarique] and how they decide to lead us towards those possibilities. We have given full authority to the acting chairman on behalf of our party, and we have prayed for his success."

Asked about the venue of the meeting, Mirza Fakhrul said: "The venue is the hotel [Hotel Dorchester] in London where the chief advisor is staying. That is where the deputy leader of the House of Commons, Tarique Rahman, and others will meet him in England. After that, other leaders who are there will meet with him. There is only one venue.”

Tarique, the eldest son of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, was released from prison during the state of emergency in 2008 and moved to London with his family. Under the Awami League regime, he was sentenced in five cases in absentia and more than a hundred cases were filed against him.

In the eyes of the court, he became a “fugitive suspect”. There was even a ban on his speech and statements. After his passport expired, Tarique had to seek political asylum in the UK.

He did not return to Bangladesh even during difficult times like his brother Arafat Rahman Coco’s death and his mother’s imprisonment.

But since the July Uprising and the fall of the Awami League government, the situation has changed. Khaleda and Tarique have been acquitted one by one in all the cases in which they were sentenced.

Khaleda, freed from jail, visited London earlier this year for medical treatment. She also stayed at her son’s house. When she returned in May, she was accompanied by Tarique’s wife Zubaida Rahman, who came back to the country after 17 years. However, BNP leaders have not answered when Tarique will return.

Instead, they have repeatedly said that Tarique will return “when the time comes”. Though he is not in Bangladesh, he is still leading the party as its acting chairman and is holding regular meetings through video conferencing calls.

His meeting with Chief Advisor Yunus comes at a time when the BNP is at odds with the interim government over the election schedule.

For some time, Yunus has said that the 13th national election could be held by June 2026 after the necessary reforms are completed. In his address to the nation on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha, he spoke of bringing that date forward by two months, announcing that the election could be held any day in early April.

But the BNP, which has demanded elections by December, says it is very disappointed with the decision. They say there is no reason why elections have to wait.

The National Consensus Commission, led by Yunus, is trying to establish a consensus among political parties on the issue of reforms. The BNP has made its differences of opinion known with many of the recommendations.

The party believes that work like constitutional reforms should be undertaken by a national parliament under an elected government, not an interim one. The National Citizen Party (NCP), the new party led by student leaders of the Anti-discrimination Student Movement protests, is in favour of conducting more comprehensive reforms before elections are held.