Dhaka: Realising that strengthening the party is the only way for its visible return to the political landscape, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) now plans to rigorously overhaul the party from the grassroots to the standing committee levels so that the ‘right’ message from the party leadership can ‘rightly’ spread out everywhere.

A BNP leader said wishing anonymity that the chairperson is annoyed with her party’s policymakers and her advisers on who she mainly depends on taking crucial political decisions as she thinks they have misguided her and failed to demonstrate their political maturity, putting the party in an awkward position.

He said the BNP chief now realises that had the party policymakers with their political wisdom been able to help her take prudent decisions and work out smart strategies after and before the January-5, 2014 polls, the party could have been in a better position and their movement could have been highly successful.

Under the circumstance, the BNP leader said, Khaleda Zia is determined to bring massive changes at all levels of the party inducting dedicated, competent, smart and spirited party leaders having political acumen in the committees, including the standing committee, so that the party can quickly bounce back from its current muddy condition.

BNP senior leaders also think there should be a vigorous reshuffle in the party’s leadership both at the centre and grassroots levels. They also said they have already started doing the groundwork for overhauling the party.

‘It’s undeniable that our movement couldn’t reach the desired goal as we couldn’t adopt right strategies to make it successful in the face of the government’s repressive acts and evil tactics. The anti-government movement and the recent city polls have sent out a strong message to the party high command for strengthening the party’s all levels through a massive overhaul,’ BNP standing committee member Lt Gen Mahbubur Rahman told UNB.

The BNP leader also said the party should hold its national council to bring competent, young and dedicated leaders in front replacing the low performers and old ones.

He also said there is an informal discussion within the party regarding the national council. ‘There’s a strong possibility of holding the council as part of our move to overhaul the party.’

Mahbub also said they will not come out with tougher action programmes until the party is revamped.  

‘This is of course a long-haul drive to put the party back on track and re-launch the anti-government campaign paving the path for restoring democracy as people have long been looking for,’ said BNP vice chairman Abdullah Al Noman.

He further said, ‘There’s no doubt that the country’s people and opposition political parties have been passing through a troubling time for the last few years, particularly after the January-5 election in 2014, as the current regime is out to annihilate its political opponents using the state machinery and election engineering.’

‘The only option left for us to regain strength through revamping the party from the top hierarchy to the grassroots level to rejuvenate the party men and thus gear up the ongoing movement. Though we’ve been mauled by the repressive regime but we haven’t been out...we’re obviously there and we’ll be right back through overhauling the party,’ he added.

Mentioning that the revamping party is their routine work, BNP joint secretary general M Shahjahan said they have started completing some ground works for a massive reshuffle in the party committees.

He said they are now addressing the party’s internal problems and collecting information about their grassroots leaders and activists. ‘It’ll take time to overhaul the party as many of our leaders and activists are in now jail, while many more on the run facing many political cases. We’ll now give them necessary support from the party so that they can secure bail and come out of jail. Later, we’ll start the overhauling process.’

BNP spokesman Asaduzzaman Ripon said they have sent letters to all the district and divisional committees across the country seeking information about those opposition leaders and activists killed, sent to jail and implicated in ‘false’ cases.