The policymakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party were urged to reconstitute the expired and inactive organisational committees across the country before announcing any movement targeting the next general election.

The demand came from a number of central and grassroots leaders of the party in its recently-held series meetings between the policy makers and the central and local leaders, a party standing-committee member told FP.

‘They [grassroots leaders] want movements under the leadership of active and valid committees,’ he said, adding that they also wanted the reconstitution of committees in accordance with the party constitution.

In most cases, committees are formed by letters from central leaders without taking opinions of grassroots activists into account and hence they did not reflect the hopes and aspirations of grassroots activists and supporters, they said in the meetings.

Many leaders of such  ‘letterhead-based’ committees fall sick, go abroad or get admitted to a Dhaka hospital when the party announce a movement, the BNP standing committee member said.

He revealed that many leaders in the series meetings also suggested that no party having a leader but no supporters or activists should be invited to join any future movement.

‘Such one-man party leaders misguide movements and sometimes become a cause for trusted leaders to lose their motivation for movements,’ he said, adding that they also opposed the formation of any platform like the Jatiya Oikya Front that came into existence before the 11th parliamentary polls on December 30, 2018.

The last closed-door exchange among the top-level leaders in the second phase of series meetings was held on Thursday night at the BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka.

BNP standing committee members joined the exchange while the party acting chairperson Tarique Rahman attended it virtually from London.

In the three-day second phase, the party received opinions from the executive committee members of the party’s organisational divisions while, in the first phase, the BNP policymakers had three closed-door sessions with the party’s vice-chairmen, advisory council members, joint secretaries general, organising secretaries, assistant organising secretaries and secretaries and top leaders of the party’s different associate bodies.

The second-phase series meetings were held with BNP branch leaders in order to know their plans, suggestions and opinions about the party’s next course of action ahead of the next parliamentary elections.

The BNP formed a 502-member national executive committee in its sixth national council on March 19, 2016.