Bangladeshi students who led last year’s mass protests to depose Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have launched a political party.
Addressing a rally on Manik Mia Avenue adjacent to the parliament building in the capital on Friday, February 28, 2025, leaders of the new National Citizens Party (NCP) insisted that they would pursue the politics of national unity over division, transparency and good governance over corruption, and an independent foreign policy to build a “second republic.”
It was announced that Nahid Islam would be the new party’s convenor.
Islam resigned on Tuesday from the interim government, headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, to assume the leadership of the new party, which will initially have a central committee of about 150 members.
Yunus, who has headed the interim government since Hasina’s exit in August, has said general elections will be held by December or in early 2026.
Islam spoke about the goals of the National Citizen Party at the rally.
“This will be a party founded on democratic principles, equality, and true representation of the people. The NCP will work to build a self-reliant national economy with a balanced focus on agriculture, the service sector, and industry — one that is free from income discrimination and sensitive to both life and nature.
Nahid Islam
On Wednesday, former leaders of Students Against Discrimination (SAD), the student movement that toppled Hasina’s Awami League government, launched a new student organisation, Ganatantrik Chhatra Sangsad, or the Democratic Student Council (DSC), at a news conference that saw a brief scuffle between two SAD factions.
According to DSC leaders, the SAD was formed to organise the July movement with the participation of students affiliated with various political party student wings who have since returned to their respective organisations. Additionally, many of its leaders have now joined the new political party.
DSC convener Abu Baker Mazumdar said at the launch of the group, “We have formed this new organisation to uphold the spirit of the July movement among students.”
He emphasised that the organisation will remain independent and will not affiliate with any political party, including the NCP.
However, analysts view it as an allied organisation of the new party, sharing the same spirit as the July movement.
NCP Aimed At Upending Political Landscape
Political analysts said that the youth-led NCP aims to upend Bangladesh’s political landscape, dominated for decades by two woman-led family dynasties.
Hasina’s family is descended from the country’s founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who also was the founder of the Awami League party.
Then there’s former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s family. Zia’s late husband, former military ruler Ziaur Rahman, founded the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Besides the two main political groups, Islamist organisations such as Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI), and left-leaning groups, such as the Communist Party of Bangladesh, have so far maintained their role as influential pressure groups in Bangladesh’s politics.
Leaders of the newly formed party contended that Bangladesh’s politics has long been defined by what they consider “divisive faultlines” – secularism vs Islamic law or people’s allegiances towards Pakistan or their own homeland during the 1971 liberation movement.
The party’s founders said that they gathered opinions from nearly 200,000 people, both online and offline, on the kind of politics they should pursue and which issues needed urgent attention.
They said that the responses reveal a strong desire to root out corruption, reform education and ensure universal access to healthcare.
Speaking from the stage on Friday, Islam said that there will be no place for pro-India or pro-Pakistan politics in Bangladesh. “We will rebuild the state with Bangladesh at the centre, keeping the interests of its people first,” he added.
However, Analysts said that the new party will face a series of challenges and overcoming internal rifts, presenting a unified front and presenting itself as distinct from existing political entities will be its main immediate struggles.
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