Jamaat chief urges Yunus to convene all-party meeting amid escalating political rift

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Shafiqur Rahman has called on Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus to convene an all-party meeting to resolve the ongoing political turmoil in Bangladesh.

The call followed an emergency meeting of Jamaat’s central executive committee on Thursday afternoon at the party’s central office in Dhaka’s Moghbazar.

The country’s overall political situation was reviewed during the meeting, the party said in a media statement.

The BNP has been pushing for a general election by December.

A protest demanding party leader Ishraque Hossain’s swearing-in as Dhaka South City mayor has been raging for days, triggering sharp exchanges between the BNP and National Citizen Party (NCP).

While the NCP has called for local government elections before the parliamentary polls and raised doubts over the Election Commission’s integrity, the BNP has rejected the idea and insisted on holding an election without delay.

The campaign to install Ishraque as mayor has also reignited demands for the resignation of two student advisors in the caretaker government—Mahfuj Alam and Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain.

In a recent press conference, the BNP reiterated its demand for their dismissal, also calling for the removal of National Security Advisor Khalilur Rahman.

The NCP has, in turn, demanded the resignation of three other advisors in the interim cabinet — Asif Nazrul, Salehuddin Ahmed, and Wahiduddin Mahmud — labelling them as “BNP mouthpieces”.

With both the BNP and NCP locked in competing demands, recent media reports say Army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman has proposed holding the next general election within December.

With the backdrop of escalating political tensions, Jamaat has stepped in to call for national consensus through an all-party meeting, urging Yunus to take the lead.