The Dhaka city unit convening committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is set to miss the deadline for announcing a full-fledged committee as formation of ward and thana level units is proceeding at a snail's pace.
Twelve out of 100 ward units have so far been formed while no thana and union level units have been constituted in last two and half months. The delay has caused disappointment in the party.
At a meeting of the convening committee on Friday, all ward committees, which already served out their terms, were asked to name new committees by holding conferences before Eid.
A number of ward level leaders hailed the move to reorganise the city unit. Despite slow pace, the move has encouraged the activists and brought mobility in the organisation with crowds of activists visiting the central and local offices every day, they said.
There are 43 thana units and 14 union level units under the jurisdiction of the party's Dhaka city unit.
BNP insiders said that long-drawn rivalries among leaders were causing the delay in reorganising the city unit, launch of a vigorous anti-government movement and preparations for Dhaka City Corporation polls.
After a lapse of nearly three years, BNP announced its 21-member Dhaka city unit convening committee headed by mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka on May 15. The committee was assigned the task to form a full-fledged executive committee by November 14 by holding a council session.
The BNP high command's move to expand the city convening committee to accommodate more leaders and end intra-party feuds over the new committee is yet to gather momentum.
Sadeque Hossain Khoka, convener of the city committee, told New Age that it would take at least one year to complete formation of all the committees. 'Formation of new committees is being delayed due to a lot of political programmes and also because we are taking the views of local people over the matter,' he said.
Abdus Salam, member-secretary of the city convening committee, said that the government was obstructing holding of conferences of local units which was also causing delay in forming committees.
A number of ward level leaders said that formation of the committees was being delayed as rival groups led by Khoka and Mirza Abbas were trying to have as many of their respective followers in the new committees as possible. Party leaders also said that an initiative had been undertaken to reconcile the two groups and new committees were being formed keeping the problem in mind.
The last Dhaka city committee was dissolved by the then party secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain in June 2008, after Khoka and some prominent leaders sided with the reformist faction.
After the December 2008 parliamentary polls, several attempts of the BNP high command to form the committees failed due to internal conflict.
The activities of the city unit, however, have increased in recent times with a number of leaders visiting the party office and lobbying the high command for posts in the committees and nominations as ward councillors.
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia recently castigated leaders of its Dhaka city convening committee for being inactive during the general strike.
Source : New Age
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