Dhaka: People are "disappointed" by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus's announcement to hold elections in April 2026, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said on Saturday, asserting that April is not the "right time" to conduct polls.
The party reiterated its demand for polls by December this year.
"April is not the right time for polls in Bangladesh in any way,” BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told journalists.
His statement came a day after Yunus, during a televised address to the nation on the eve of the Eid-ul-Adha festival, announced that national elections would be held in the first half of April next year.
Yunus' announcement was followed by an urgent virtual meeting of the standing committee of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP, presided over by the party's acting chairman and Zia’s son Tarique Rahman from London.
In a statement, the BNP said Yunus’ address meant an “unwarranted delay” in arranging the election, adding that it “ignored” the nation’s aspirations, causing people “disappointment and anger”.
The meeting concluded that the election in early April could lead to complications -- both due to adverse weather conditions and the challenges of conducting campaigns and election-related activities during Ramadan—which may ultimately be used as grounds for deferring the polls.
Reiterating the party's proposal to hold the election by December this year, it said the chief adviser’s address did not provide any clear justification as to why conducting the election by then would not be feasible.
The BNP statement alleged despite being a non-partisan interim government, the Yunus administration put its own neutrality into question by becoming influenced by a particular political quarter, an oblique reference to the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP).
According to the statement, the scenario suggests the interim government compromises its neutrality and raises public concerns over the possibility of a free and fair election.
“The meeting believes the people of the country may be rightly concerned about the possibility of a free and fair election under this government,” it said.
It said Yunus, in his speech, touched upon issues like ports and corridors — topics that did not fall within the interim government's three mandates - justice, reform and elections.
“The meeting expressed anger at his choice of words in the speech, which crossed the limits of political decorum,” the statement said.
Yunus, who took charge after the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League regime in August last year, said the interim government's key responsibility was to hold a clean, peaceful, festive, and inclusive election.
Yunus’s announcement comes amid mounting pressure from the BNP and several other groups to hold the election by December.
The NCP and several rightwing groups, however, said the polls must wait until the “reforms” and “justice” were done.
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