Mohiuddin Ahmed speaks to DOT :
There has never been a free and fair election in Bangladesh. BNP has to at first release a statement regarding their loss in the polls. This is a tragedy for those hoping for a BNP victory. I did not expect it to win. Those people sitting in their living rooms, hoping for BNP to win, would consider this an upset. But to others, this isn’t the case. Election by police violence has happened before. Of course police would do whatever the state instructs it to do. Therefore, the police’s behavior under a partisan election is unsurprising. This was expected. There will be analyses and inquiries
made about whether this really was an election or not. But BNP can do nothing to alter the outcome of this election. BNP has to decide its politics, not its leaders. As a political party, BNP now has to decide what kind of politics it must do. Will they reject the Awami League? That is also negative politics.
Nothing good comes out of negative politics. The party has to firmly state ‘this is who we are’, ‘this is what we want’; they have to declare their stance. Hindustan and Hinduism will not work in Bangladesh. BNP understood this too late. As a consequence, it has no difference with the Awami League. And for this, it is now in ruins. Mohiuddin Ahmed is writer, researcher and political expert
Interview by Amirul Islam
Translated by Abrar Hussain