Bdesh: BNPs student wing, NCP hold rallies ahead of July Uprising anniversary
Dhaka, Aug 3 (PTI) Activists of the National Citizen Party and the BNP's student wing held separate rallies in Bangladesh on Sunday ahead of the first anniversary of the July Uprising that toppled the Sheikh Hasina-led government on August 5 last year.
The newly-floated National Citizen Party (NCP) unveiled the party's 24-point manifesto during its rally in Dhaka's Central Shaheed Minar.
The NCP is a major offshoot of Students Against Discrimination (SAD), which led last year's violent campaign to oust Hasina's Awami League regime.
The Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student wing of former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), called first-time voters to cast their inaugural ballots in favour of the party during its rally in Dhaka's Shahbagh area.
Both groups said their rallies marked the first anniversary of the so-called 'July Uprising," which led to the ouster of the government led by 77-year-old Hasina on August 5, 2024, forcing her to flee to India.
They, however, agreed to shift the site and time of their respective, near-simultaneous rallies to prevent overlapping or possible clashes.
Law enforcement agencies also enforced a strict vigil and deployed additional forces.
NCP Convener Nahid Islam unveiled the party's 24-point manifesto, which calls for 'New Bangladesh", the formation of a 'Second Republic" and the adoption of a new Constitution.
The manifesto includes pledges to disband the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), draft a new constitution through a constituent assembly and recognise the July Uprising.
'In the new start of our country, our very first commitment is to frame a new constitution through (a) constituent assembly . . . The fascist government (Awami League regime) has fallen, but yet we could not abolish the fascist system," Islam said.
The manifesto vowed to ensure exemplary punishment for every extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance during the previous regime.
The BNP rejected the NCP's demand to declare a 'Second Republic" and scrap the 1972 Constitution of post-independence Bangladesh, as legal experts strongly opposed the idea, warning it could undermine the country's legal foundation.
BNP's acting Chairman and Zia's son Tarique Rahman virtually joined the rally from London and called on Bangladesh's students and first-time voters to cast their inaugural ballots in favour of the party's electoral symbol — a sheaf of paddy.
'The people of Bangladesh, 54 years after independence, no longer want politics rooted in vengeance. We must build the Bangladesh that everyone desires," he said, addressing the rally, attended by BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. PTI AR GRS GRS GRS
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August 03, 2025, 21:00 IST
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