DHAKA DISRUPTED: Bangladesh is heading towards another crisis as some of the key functionaries of the interim government, led by Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus, seem to be working on a plan to remove President Mohammed Shahabuddin even as the BNP, the country’s main Opposition party for over 15 years, is opposing any such move.

The last 72 hours witnessed a public discourse in Dhaka — led by a group of students and some important members of the Yunus regime — on Shahabuddin’s removal after veteran journalist Matiur Rahman Chowdhury wrote in a signed article that the President told him that he had not received any resignation letter from former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who left the country in the face of a popular uprising on August 5.

The claim — willy-nilly questioning the legitimacy of the interim regime — drew sharp reactions from the interim government as Asif Nazrul, law adviser to Yunus, accused the President of lying, suggesting that his statement constituted a breach of his oath of office, triggering a demand for Shahbuddin’s resignation.

On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters gathered around Bangabhaban, the official residence of the Bangladesh President, demanding his removal and bringing back memories of the August revolution that brought down the Hasina regime. The protests, however, fizzled out as the police and the armed forces brought the situation under control.

As Hasnat Abdullah and Sarjis Alam, two of the top leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, intervened and asked the protesters to leave the area — instead of egging them on to take on the law enforcers — several theories on their actions have begun doing the rounds in Dhaka.

“The student leaders have been unequivocally against the president as he was elected by the Hasina regime. They had plans to force him to resign by organising street protests and had given the call for a gathering outside Bangabhaban to fulfil their plan,” said a source.

According to the source, two top student leaders and a senior adviser to Yunus had even held a meeting with a senior member of the judiciary on Tuesday with a proposal to make him the President.

Removal of the President, with a plan to change the chief of army staff Waker-uz-Zaman thereafter, are the two major targets that the student leaders — who cut their teeth in politics in Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing — have set for themselves before changing the country’s Constitution, said the source.

“The blueprint had the blessings of Hefazat-e-Islam, a far-Right Islamic advocacy group and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which aims to establish an Islamic Caliphate and implement Sharia globally,” said the source.

“Their plan, however, went awry, at least for the time being, for two reasons... First, they didn’t get enough people on the ground, which reflected the growing discontent with the student leaders. Then, the army came to protect Bangabhan, which prompted a re-think among the student leaders and they dispersed,” said a veteran journalist, who has lost his job and got implicated in murder cases after the fall of the Hasina government.

Amid the call from the student leaders to remove Shahabuddin — which had the backing of the interim government — the BNP has added a fresh twist by publicly declaring that the party does not want to see the post of president vacant in the current situation.

“A vacancy in the President’s post would create a state and a constitutional crisis, which the nation does not expect at this moment,” BNP standing committee member Salahuddin Ahmed told the media this afternoon, after he and two other senior party leaders called on Yunus.

The BNP’s response to the controversy over Shahabuddin’s continuation as the President is the fall out of its worsening relationship with its long-time ally Jamaat-e-Islami, which has been playing a key role in the Yunus administration.

“The BNP leadership is well aware that any change in the post of the President and the chief of army staff would surely bring people close to the Jamaat at the helm. Right now they are fancying a chance of coming to power once elections are held while the Jamaat is trying to unite all the Islamist forces before the electoral battle. The BNP doesn’t want to give an advantage to the Jamaat by supporting any change in the top two posts,” explained a political observer.

The student leaders — who have been dictating terms in Bangladesh — made a U-turn on the issue following the BNP’s stand on the President’s removal as Nahid Islam, information adviser to Yunus,said on Wednesday that a decision regarding the President can be reached through political consensus and national unity, rather than following legal or constitutional procedures.

“After realising that the armed forces are backing the President and the BNP is against the idea of a fresh uncertainty in the country, the student leaders have tweaked their plan,” said an observer.

Multiple sources in Dhaka said that several factors may have come to the rescue of Shahabuddin for the time being, but the student leaders are unlikely to give up on their mission.

“They will use the mosques and Islamist leaders to mobilise opinion against the President and create pressure on him to quit... They have created an anarchy-like situation by forcing judges, teachers and senior administration officials to resign over the last few months.

“Now, their target is the President,” said a source.