Kazi Zafar Ahmed has declared himself as the new Chairman of Jatiya Party which expelled him a day before.
He also announced that he was joining the Opposition’s movement for a non-party caretaker government following a meeting with the BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at her Gulshan office on Friday evening.
Kazi Zafar claimed that a new committee of the ‘Jatiya Party’ had been formed expelling Chairman Hussein Muhammad Ershad.
“I’m the chairman of the committee and Golam Mohsi is the Secretary General,” he said, speaking to reporters.
He went to see her around 7:40pm on Friday, the BNP chief’s Press Secretary Maruf Kamal Khan told bdnews24.com.
After signing his expulsion order, Ershad on Thursday had told reporters that “Zafar has been continuously making statements against me and violating party discipline”.
“I have signed his expulsion order… He is no more with the party,” Ershad said.
Zafar, a former Prime Minister in Ershad’s government from 1989 to 1990, bitterly criticised the former military dictator for deciding to join the ‘all-party’ interim cabinet.
Kazi Zafar entered public life in the pre-independence turmoil of Bangladesh in the 1960s as a Maoist leader who attracted a large following.
He then worked with BNP’s General Ziaur Rahman and they formed a party named People’s Democratic Party (PPP).
Gen Zia formed a united front and Kazi Zafar remained with Zia for sometime as the Education Minister.
He was forced to flee to India in late 1990 after the fall of Gen Ershad and sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia for stealing food from his flood-ravaged people and selling it, in 1999.
Kazi Zafar was taken to a Dhaka hospital in 2002 with a kidney complaint. Soon after, he returned to Australia to live with a daughter who had settled in Sydney.
He finally came back to Bangladesh on Aug 25, 2001 after two years’ treatment to run in the Oct 1 election but was arrested in Dhaka the same day.
He was released on bail after lodging a High Court appeal against his sentence. He was also granted bail in four other corruption cases against him.
Kazi Zafar Ahmed has met BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, a day after he was expelled from Jatiya Party, apparently to explore political possibilities.
Zafar came to see her at her Gulshan residence around 7:40pm on Friday, the BNP chief’s Press Secretary Maruf Kamal Khan told journalists.
After signing his expulsion order, Jatiya Party Chairman Hussein Muhammad Ershad on Thursday had told reporters that “Zafar has been continuously making statements against me and violating party discipline”.
“I have signed his expulsion order… He is no more with the party,” Ershad said.
Zafar, a former Prime Minister in Ershad’s government in the 1980s, bitterly criticised the former military dictator for deciding to join the ‘all-party’ interim cabinet.
Kazi Zafar had called Ershad a ‘betrayer’.– bdnews24,com
