NN Online:
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Senior Leader Nazrul Islam has said that BNP maintains a close relationship with Jamaat-e-Islami, highlighting the absence of any distance between the two political groups.
He made these remarks to the media after a meeting with a delegation of Jatiyatabadi Samamona Jote at the BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office on Friday.
Expressing hope, he said Jamaat would join the movement for the restoration of democracy alongside other democratic parties in the future.
“We have no such distance with Jamaat. They [Jamaat] also want democracy and elections, and they speak of human rights, as we do,” the BNP leader said.
He said, “But if anyone claims that they alone are patriots, naturally, we will feel hurt. We will say, brother, that is not true. We all are patriots.”
The BNP leader hoped that no politician would make such remarks in the future. Asked whether BNP would hold any meeting with Jamaat, he said their party was not formally engaged in a simultaneous movement with Jamaat.
While Jamaat was also part of the movement against the Awami League government, like BNP and other parties, their programmes were not the same, he said.
“We hope that in the coming days, we all will be three in the movement to restore democracy, and they [Jamaat] will also join the movement,” Nazrul said.
In response to another question, he said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has been receiving proper care at the London Clinic.
“By the grace of Allah, her treatment is progressing well. We urge the people of the country to pray for her swift recovery so that she can return to us after the treatment,” the BNP leader said.
Jatiyatabadi Samamona Jote Chief and National People’s Party (NPP) Chairman Dr Fariduzzaman Farhad also spoke, urging the interim government to arrange elections after promptly completing the necessary reforms.
