With almost two and a half years left until the 12th National Assembly elections, the country's political parties have already begun preparations for the elections.
Ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, all parties, including the Awami League and the BNP, have taken initiatives to organize their organizations at the grassroots level. It is learned that the registered political parties also completed submitting their income and expenditure accounts to the Election Commission (EC) last Tuesday.
According to the constitution, the 12th parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in late 2023 or early 2024. Awami League will prepare itself before then. Awami League is preparing to organize its national triennial conference by December 2022. However, preparations have already begun for organizing conferences at the upazila, thana, municipality, union and ward levels in 78 organizational districts. Some senior Awami League leaders have said that preparations for the next parliamentary elections will be taken in full swing after the grassroots conference.
At the same time, the Awami League is considering expanding its alliance with some Islamic parties to balance the vote tally. The same idea is also being considered with some left-wing political parties. If there is a positive response in this regard, the scope of the electoral alliance will be expanded to the grand alliance.
On the other hand, the BNP, which is weak and organizationally weak in the political arena, has also started making organizational preparations internally targeting the 12th national elections. To that end, they are also taking initiatives to strengthen the grassroots. They are trying to organize the political arena with the aim of implementing four specific plans.
According to multiple BNP sources, the BNP is preparing to launch a movement in a 'new form' with a single demand for the upcoming 12th parliamentary elections to be held freely and fairly under a non-partisan government.
Several top leaders have said that they plan to increase the number of partners in the Awami League-led grand alliance ahead of the upcoming elections. Although there is some concern about the Jatiya Party at present, there is a plan to bring them closer as the elections approach. There will be initiatives to further improve relations with the partners of the 14-party alliance.
The Awami League plans to organize a conference of expired district and upazila committees in Dhaka division from this month. The conference will be held in Rajbari district first. After that, preparations are underway to organize a conference of the Narayanganj district committee. The conference of expired districts will be held before the party's national conference, said Abu Saeed Al Mahmud Swapan, the central organizing secretary in charge of this division.
Meanwhile, BNP party sources said that BNP wants to bring together all political parties from the right and left and people from different classes and professions on a single platform to demand free, fair and impartial elections in the country. In this regard, the party has started contacting various political parties and organizations. However, the strategy is to keep Jamaat-e-Islam, one of the 20 party partners, practically 'inactive', so that one of the obstacles in the way of a larger unity alliance, Jamaat-e-Islami, accused of war crimes, can be gradually pushed out of the alliance.
On the other hand, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman said that national unity has not been established even after 50 years of independence. Without national unity, it is difficult to protect independence and sovereignty. Despite being subjected to oppression and torture in the struggle to protect independence and sovereignty and achieve rights, Jamaat has remained vocal in protest on the streets. In the coming days, Jamaat-e-Islami will continue the politics of building a country with everyone.
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