Khelafat Majlis quits Jamaat-led alliance
Khelafat Majlis on Saturday formally announced its withdrawal from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party alliance, ending months of friction between the two Islamist parties over seat-sharing and the use of Khelafat Majlis’s name in joint campaign materials.
The decision was disclosed at the party’s third general meeting of its Central Majlis-e-Shura, held at the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh (IDEB) auditorium in the capital. In a press release signed by Central Publicity Secretary Engineer Abdul Hafiz Khasru, the party said it would abstain from all future programmes and activities of the alliance.
The party left the door open to future cooperation, however, saying it would consider rejoining a broader coalition if circumstances required it.
According to party sources, tensions traced back to the 11-party alliance’s divisional rally in Chattogram on June 13, after which Khelafat Majlis formally asked the alliance not to use its name or the names of its leaders on banners or promotional material for future events.
When the party’s name later appeared at a rally in Rangpur, it was removed following objections from Khelafat Majlis. The party’s name has not been used in any alliance programme since.
Party leaders said that while Khelafat Majlis had been part of the alliance’s original understanding and retained a limited presence in some of its post-election activities, it had refrained from participating in alliance events for several days before Saturday’s announcement.
The split follows a strained run-up to Bangladesh’s recent national election, during which Khelafat Majlis and Jamaat clashed repeatedly over how the alliance’s roughly 300 parliamentary seats would be divided.
Khelafat Majlis had pushed for a larger allocation than it was ultimately offered, and disputes over unilateral decisions and backchannel talks between Jamaat and other parties, including the National Citizen Party, deepened mistrust within the bloc in the final weeks before polling. Khelafat Majlis was not alone in that discontent: Islami Andolan Bangladesh, another alliance partner, left the coalition earlier this year over similar seat-sharing grievances.
With Khelafat Majlis’s exit, the 11-party alliance’s membership shrinks further, continuing a pattern of fragmentation among Bangladesh’s religion-based political parties since the last general election. The party has not ruled out future coalition-building, but for now it says it will operate independently of the Jamaat-led platform.
