By Ali Hassan

Bangladesh has two major parties that have fame and prestige in Bangladesh since its birth in 1971. The one is well known and pioneer party named as Awami league (AL) lead by Sheikh Mujeeb ur Rehman and his daughter Sheikh Hasina. Second one is Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lead by Zia ur Rehman initially and then his wife Begum Khaleda Zia after the death of Zia ur Rehman. The Bangladesh Awami League, often simply called the Awami League or AL is a centrist to centre-left political party in Bangladesh. The All Pakistan Awami Muslim League was founded in Dhaka, the capital of the Pakistani province of East Bengal, in 1949 by Bengali nationalists. On the other hand, The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is a centre-right to right-wing nationalist, political party in Bangladesh and one of the major political parties of Bangladesh. It was founded on 1^st September 1978 by former Bangladeshi President Zia ur Rahman after the Presidential election of 1978, with a view of uniting the people with a nationalist ideology.

Since its foundation, BNP succeeded in second, fifth, sixth and eighth national elections and two Presidential elections in 1978 and 1981. The party also holds the record of being the largest opposition in the history of parliamentary elections of the country, with 116 seats in the seventh national election of June 1996. It has currently 7 MPs in parliament after 2018 general election. Although the party was initially founded on nationalistic principle, many of its leaders want an Islamic government and its main supporters are Islamists.

After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the Awami League won the first general elections in 1973 but was overthrown in 1975 after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The party was forced by subsequent military regimes onto the political sidelines, and many of its senior leaders and activists were executed or jailed. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politics. Since 2009, when the Awami League came to power, Bangladesh has experienced democratic backsliding.

Moreover, the current party leader and the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina’s policy outrages let AL to suffer in negative as well. Athough undoubtedly Sheikh Hasina devoted her life for the state and party and brought many developments and changes but somehow she missed her father’s polices and legacies which were the beauty and strength of this party.

Furthermore Hasina and her party faced accusations of suppressing the opposition throughout their term in power. Many opposition members were arrested or tried, and the government at times seemed to stifle dissent and free speech. Jamaat-e-Islami, a small Islamist party key to the opposition coalition, was in 2013 banned from participating in elections, after a court ruled that its religious charter was inconsistent with Bangladesh’s secular constitution. Citing concerns that the 2014 parliamentary elections would not be free and fair, the BNP and other opposition groups boycotted the polls, and the Awami League swept the elections. Those concerns remained in place in advance of the 2018 polling, though the BNP did decide to contest the elections that year. Khaleda, still leader of the BNP, was jailed on charges of embezzlement and graft earlier that year and was not allowed to participate. The Awami League won a landslide victory, while the BNP won only a few seats. Hasina denied accusations of election rigging and dismissed the BNP’s loss as resulting from a lack of leadership within the party. This showed that Hasina wajed is more concerned about the protection of her power and party leadership than the concerns of Bangladesh and Bengali people.

Moreover Sheikh Hasina’s more inclination towards India and working closely on the agenda of Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, has created a sense of chaos in Bangladeshi people and now AL is being questioned on the basis of performance of current leader Sheikh Hasina Wajid. In  recent years, Bangladesh has seen rising anti-India sentiments among its citizens due to the Indian government's perceived anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi activities like India's interference in Bangladeshi politics, killings of Bangladeshis by Indian BSF, Citizenship Amendment Act, rise of Hindutva in India as well as India's reluctance in solving the water disputes in common rivers with Bangladesh. In 2019, several Bangladeshi ministers canceled their scheduled state visits to India as a response to India's Citizenship Amendment Bill. In 2021, massive protests in Bangladesh against the state visit by Indian PM Narendra Modi to the country led to the death of at least 14 people. The democracy in Bangladesh was also at risk.

These situations have emerged questioning minds in Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh want to restore the policies of Bangabandu and Khaleda Zia the BNP leader. So, the forthcoming elections could be expected as a regime change in Bangladesh as AL has lost most of its credibility because of pro-Indian polices.