Jatiya Party chairman Hussein Mohammad Ershad addresses a joint meeting of the party at the Institute of Diploma Engineers in Dhaka on Saturday. — New Age photo

Some of the district level leaders of the Jatiya Party faction led by Hussein Muhammad Ershad at a joint meeting on Saturday said that they could not rely on their party chairman because of his habit of making sweeping comments.
The general secretary of Satkhira’s Shyamnagar upazila unit Hafez Abdur Rashid, who took part in the discussion, referring to Ershad said, ‘We cannot trust you as you change your decisions frequently. You change say something else in the afternoon after you say something in the morning.’
‘If you want take part in the next general elections separately, it is time you left the grand alliance [led by the Awami League],’ he said.
Most of the leaders at the meeting of the party at the Institute of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh urged the party chairman to leave the AL-led alliance immediately and to take part in the next national elections separately.
Presidents and general secretaries of the district units of the party spoke at the meeting.
In the inaugural speech, the party chair Ershad called on grassroots leaders to speak without any hesitation. ‘I want to listen to what people say. I will make decisions as you and the people want.’
The president of the Thakurgaon sadar upazila unit of the party, Makbul Hossain, also said that the party should leave the AL-led alliance and said the Awami League had captured the party and there was no option but to leave the alliance.
Ershad said that his party would take part in the next general elections separately as the two big political parties — the Awami League and the BNP — have held the country hostage.
‘There is an alternative of floating a third political force to overcome the situation and the Jatiya Party would be the third political force,’ Ershad said.
Dohar-Nababganj unit leader Alauddin Al Azad, Roumari unit leader Habibur Rahman and Palashbari unit leader Julhas Uddin also called on the party chair to to leave the AL-led alliance.
The party’s general secretary ABM Ruhul Amin Hawlader said that they had joined the AL-led alliance with aspirations but most of them remained unfulfilled.
The party’s presidium members Rawshan Ershad and Kazi Firoz Rashid and joint secretary general Zahirul Islam also spoke.
More than 1000 grassroots leaders took part in the programme and about 100 leaders spoke at the daylong programme, party sources said.