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Some leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, who were at the forefront of the July-August student-people uprising that ousted the Awami League regime, are likely to launch a new party by the first quarter of the next year.

They are now busy preparing the party manifesto and programmes which they said would be centrist in nature.

The organisers said that the new political party would be youth-oriented, with its primary focus on establishing social democracy as a means to eliminate all forms of discrimination. 

The manifesto would prioritise the values of the people and the heritage of the land, with a strong commitment to preventing any Islamophobic activities in the country, they said.

‘The initiative to form a political party aims to realise the vision of a Bangladesh dreamed of by countless individuals who took part in the mass uprising and those who made supreme sacrifices in the movement,’ Jatiya Nagorik Committee convener Nasiruddin Patwary told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on Friday.

Nasiruddin, a key leader of the Jatiya Nagorik  Committee, a social platform of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, said that the people wanted to see a political party within a short time that would really act to protect the interest of Bangladesh and its people against the existing old political settlement in the country.

‘The political party will be formed by students with support from the Jatiya Nagorik Committee. We aim to complete our preparations within two months, and the announcement will be made at a time when the people are ready and eager for it,’ he said.

The party’s declaration would embody a synthesis of the principles of the Proclamation of Independence—equality, human dignity and social justice—and the aspirations of the 2024 uprising, he added.

Nasiruddin emphasised the need for a political party to fulfil the aspirations of the 2024 mass uprising, saying that students and youth did not benefit from previous uprisings, including that of 1990, with their achievements instead being taken over by the two dominant political parties.

Denying the allegation of forming a party under the patronage of the interim government and the state, Jatiya Nagorik Committee spokesperson Samanta Sharmin said that the accusation was merely an attempt to discredit the initiative of the students.

She said that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was probably thinking of the initiative of students as a threat to them.

The new political party would be centrist—neither religious nor socialist—and would welcome people of all ideologies, she said.

‘We are working on the party literature and it will be finalised shortly,’ Samanta added.

‘We are young, and while we may have some flaws in the process of party formation, people must recognise that the youths and students, who have always sacrificed their lives in democratic movements throughout history but have never been properly acknowledged, are now coming together to form a party,’ she said.

Recently, the BNP alleged that efforts were underway to form a ‘king’s party’ under state patronage.

In several districts across the country, leaders and activists of the BNP and its affiliated bodies allegedly attacked members of the Jatiya Nagorik Committee and foiled some of their programmes.

On the issue, Nasiruddin said that they were not against the BNP, rather many of the young leadership and activists of the party remained aligned with a new political settlement.

He said that the BNP leaders, who wanted to maintain the old political settlement while disregarding the aspirations of the martyred in the July-August uprising, saw the students’ initiative to form a new political party as a threat to them.

Asked whether the coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, who joined the government, would join the political party, Nasiruddin said that they would have no opportunity to do so while remaining in the government.   

Jatiya Nagorik Committee co-convener Sarwar Tusher said that the reflection of the mass uprising and the power of youth would be evident in the name of the new political party though the name was yet to be finalised. 

He said that elections without ensuring qualitative change of institutions through reforms would bring no positive result for the people.

‘People want reforms, while the BNP only seeks elections,’ he mentioned. 

Tusher also said that not only the BNP, all the political parties, who ruled the people as dictators, were now united against the new political settlement and the aspiration of the people.

Following the mass uprising, the Jatiya Nagorik Committee was formed on September 8 and sought to unite diverse groups in Bangladesh to establish a new political settlement for a democratic society.

It has so far formed some 100 thana and upazila committees across the country.

According to sources, after forming 400 thana and upazila committees, the Jatiya Nagorik Committee and Anti-Discrimination Student Movement would announce the new political party.