DHAKA: Bangladeshi students who played a key role in overthrowing the government last year have announced a new political party, the latest grouping in heated political jostling ahead of expected elections.

The new Ganatantrik Chhatra Sangsad, or Democratic Student Council, includes key organisers from the powerful Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group that spearheaded the uprising that overthrew iron-fisted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August.

Politics in Bangladesh are notoriously fractious and other students then accused them of undermining the revolution. Disputes over representation led to physical clashes among members of the new group when its name was unveiled on Wednesday.

Other SAD leaders — including members who were included in the interim government that took over after Hasina fled to India — are expected to launch another separate party on Friday.

Former PM Khaleda Zia calls for swift elections

The Ganatantrik Chhatra Sangsad also includes students formerly allied to the youth wing of Hasina’s Awami League. “While accommodating students from the Awami League, we ensured that none of them were involved in mass murder or torture during the revolution,” Zahid Ahsan, a leader of the new group, said. “We are dedicated to protecting student rights,” he said, adding they wanted to “uphold the spirit” of the mass movement that rallied to end Hasina’s autocratic grip.

Call for elections

The leader of Bangladesh’s key political party Khaleda Zia called on Thursday for interim authorities to undertake “minimal” reforms so elections can be held swiftly after a revolution last year. “People expect a widely accepted election after swift and minimal reforms to restore the country’s democratic system,” Zia, a former prime minister and leader of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), said in a broadcast.

Zia, 79, served as prime minister of the South Asian nation twice but was jailed for corruption in 2018 during the tenure of Sheikh Hasina, her successor and lifelong rival. Zia was released after Hasina was toppled in August and fled into exile in India.

She flew to Britain in January for medical treatment, from where she made an online address to party members, her first in six years. “Unite the party and prepare to lead both the movements and the nation,” Khaleda urged BNP members. “The country is going through a critical period. The fascist regime was forced to flee due to the movements led by students and yourselves.”

Hasina’s government was accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections, to dismantle democratic checks on its power. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning microfinance pioneer who heads the caretaker government, has launched commissions to oversee a raft of reforms.

He has said setting an election date depends on what political parties agree upon but hopes they will take place in late 2025 or early 2026. Zia called on Bangladeshis to unite to tackle deteriorating law and order.

“Friends and allies of the fascists are hatching conspiracies to undermine the achievements of the mass uprising,” Zia said. “We must foil these conspiracies through unwavering unity among ourselves and with the people of Bangladesh.”

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2025