Yunus will be held accountable if election pledges broken: Fakhrul
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has issued a stern warning to the Chief Adviser of the interim government, stating unequivocally that he will bear full responsibility should any election promises be broken.
Speaking at the launch of journalist and author Ehsan Mahmud’s new book, Justice-Reform-Election: Bangladesh in the Interim Period, at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Fakhrul accused the recently formed consensus commission of deceiving both the public and political parties.
“The Chief Adviser must complete the reforms that are genuinely needed and hold an election that is acceptable to all,” Fakhrul declared. “If that promise is broken, he will be held accountable.”
The book, published by Adarsha, examines Bangladesh’s political trajectory during the current transitional phase.
Fakhrul used the platform to criticise the consensus commission’s final report, submitted to the Chief Adviser just a day earlier. He expressed outrage that the commission had omitted dissenting notes submitted by opposition parties, including the BNP.
“We were promised our notes of dissent would be included in the report,” Fakhrul said. “Yet when the report was published yesterday, those notes were entirely absent. This is not consensus—it is a fraud on the people and on political parties alike.”
He questioned the very purpose of forming the commission if dissenting views were to be suppressed, calling the exercise a “deception” aimed at legitimising a flawed process. Fakhrul urged immediate corrections to the report, warning that failure to do so would deepen national divisions.
Emphasising the urgency of holding a credible election, Fakhrul argued that only a truly legitimate poll could resolve the country’s mounting crises. “The parliament elected through such an election must then enact necessary reforms through constitutional means,” he said. “That is why we have consistently called for elections following 5 August. Critics claimed we were rushing for power—but now it is clear: the longer the delay, the stronger the forces seeking to destabilise Bangladesh become.”
Fakhrul lamented the growing fragmentation within the nation, despite the sacrifices made during recent uprisings. “We are failing to channel that collective struggle toward national welfare,” he said. “Instead, we are becoming increasingly divided. We must ask: who benefits from this division, and why?”
He also rejected allegations that the BNP opposes reform, calling such claims “a deliberate falsehood.” Recalling the party’s historical role, he noted that the BNP had restored multi-party democracy after the one-party rule of the post-1975 era. “BNP was born through reform,” he asserted. “To label us anti-reform is not only false, it is part of a coordinated campaign to mislead the public.”
The event was attended by prominent political and civil society figures, including Zonayed Saki, Chief Coordinator of the Ganosamhati Andolan; Nurul Haque Nur, President of the Gana Odhikar Parishad; and Sohrab Hasan, Editor of charcha.com.