Ershad rushes back from Rangpur as Jatiya Party split looms

Jatiya Party Chairman Hussein Muhammad Ershad is rushing back to Dhaka, cutting short his Rangpur trip, to address an 'urgent press conference'.

On the other hand, his wife Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Raushon Ershad is scheduled to meet the party’s parliamentary group just after Ershad’s media call on Tuesday afternoon, as a possible party split looms large.

Ershad's dramatic announcement on Sunday in Rangpur, declaring brother GM Quader as the JP co-chairperson and successor, caps a year of frequent ups and downs for the former military strongman.

The next day, a section of the party’s MPs and presidium members including Secretary General Ziauddin Ahmed Bablu, who are known to be close to the ruling Awami League, announced Raushon as the acting chairman.

Within an hour, the former military dictator appeared in a press conference in Rangpur and dismissed the announcement as ‘totally illegal’.

“I’m the party chairman. Only I have the mandate to call Presidium meeting; no-one else can do it.

“Even if it is called, that will be done against the party’s constitution. Those who have declared Raushon Ershad the party’s acting chairman have bad intentions,” he said.

Ershad pointed an accusing finger at the party leaders close to the ruling Awami League and said attempts are being made to split Jatiya Party.

The PM's special envoy, has cut short the five-day trip to his hometown and returned to Dhaka on Tuesday.

“He will appear before the media in the afternoon,” Press Secretary Sunil Shuva Roy told bdnews24.com.

Meanwhile, the Jatiya Party’s parliamentary group is scheduled to meet at 3pm. Raushon will preside over the meeting at the premises of the Parliament, said party leaders.

Relations between the deposed president and the former First Lady soured two years ago over the participation in the parliamentary elections. Amid a tug of war, Eshad had said Raushon was his saviour.

Since then, things have changed so much so that at Monday’s media conference, Ershad threatened actions against those who made the Raushon the acting party chief.

Ershad’s party contested the BNP-boycotted general election in 2014 amid much drama and then sat both in the government and in the opposition.

The former military dictator was appointed as a special envoy to the PM, his wife the Leader of Opposition while party leaders Anisul Islam Mahmud and Mashiur Rahman Ranga were made ministers.