Jamaat-e-Islami is desperate to participate at the 12th general election under any new political banner.
Two factions of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami already applied to the Election Commission (EC) under the names of Amar Bangladesh (AB) Party and Bangladesh Development Party (BDP) for registration.
Anowar Hossain Chand, a self-proclaimed president of the BDP and a former Jamaat leader, and Nizamul Haque Nayeem, Jamaat's Demra south thana unit chief in Dhaka, filed the application for BDP to the commission on Wednesday.
Regarding this, AB Party Convener AFM Solaiman Chowdhury told the Daily Observer, "Some Jamaat leaders and activists are trying to get registration of new political parties, so that they can participate in the 12th general election."
"I think BDP is a branch political party of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islam," he added.
Mentioning that, "People of the all religions are involved with the AB Party politics," he said, "We want to build a non-communal inclusive country for our next generations."
Anowar Hossain Chand, refrained from saying anything in details about his party at the EC building.
He told this Correspondent, 'We applied for registration of BDP by fulfilling all the EC conditions for registration. After organizing our party we will arrange a press conference to disclose our objectives."
Asked about his relations with Jamaat, he said, ''I am here to represent the young generation of the country, except this we have no political affiliations. Many people can make bad comment about us. We are not concerned about this, we are looking forward to organize our party."
BDP submitted 5,000 pages of documents along with the application and sought 'pineapple' as the party's electoral symbol.
When our Correspondent tried to communicate with the Publicity Secretary of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islam he did not respond.
According to the EC, the deadline for submitting applications for new party registration is October 30. So far, about two dozen new groups have applied to the EC for registration, said an EC official.
The High Court in a rule on August 1 in 2013 cancelled the registration of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that opposed Bangladesh's war of independence and declared it illegal.
Five years later, on October 29 in 2018, the EC issued a notification cancelling the party's registration.
Election Commissioner Md Alamgir told the media that if there was no involvement of Jamaat's war criminals and if their constitution was not conflicting with the Constitution of Bangladesh, then there was no bar on them getting registration under a different name by fulfilling the certain conditions.
