Ex-AL MP Golam Maula Rony joins BNP, to run for parliament

Golam Maula Rony, a former Awami League MP from Patuakhali-3, has joined the BNP ahead of the election.

He told the media on Monday he had secured the BNP’s initial nomination to fight for the constituency consisting of Golachipa and Doshmina with the party’s paddy sheaf symbol.

His announcement came a day after the ruling party started handing letters confirming initial approval of nomination to around 240 candidates.

Rony, who fought the 2014 election as an independent candidate after failing to get the Awami League’s ticket, has not been named by the party as a candidate this time as well.

Before he went to the BNP chairperson’s office at Gulshan to join the party on Monday, Hasan Mamun, a former Dhaka University unit chief of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the BNP’s student wing, received the letter of the party’s nomination for the same Patuakhali seat.

“We have here today a very much popular political leader, columnist and a popular face among the youths – Golam Maula Rony,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, welcoming the former Awami League MP.

“Rony’s joining at this hour of crisis will surely inspire those of us who have been waging a struggle for democracy,” he added.

Rony said he would serve his new party with full vigour.

Mirza Fakhrul also said the party’s acting chief in exile Tarique Rahman wished Rony the best from London.

AKM Zahangir Hossain, a former general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the Awami League’s student front, was elected MP from Patuakhali-3 in 1991 and 1996.

Zahangir was dropped from the party’s list of candidates in 2008 after he was marked a reformist during the military-controlled caretaker government.

Rony emerged as the Awami League candidate and won in that election.

He lost to Zahangir when the Awami League picked the former BCL leader for the last election.

Rony has not been an active Awami League politician since 2014, but he has regularly appeared in TV talk shows.

Zahangir has been axed from the Awami League’s list of candidates again this time.

Another former local leader of the BCL, SM Shahzada is contesting in the election with the party’s boat logo this time. Shahjada is a nephew of Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda.