BNP Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed. File Photo

NETRAKONA, Aug 30, 2025 (BSS)- BNP Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed today said the national elections must be held within the stipulated time as no one has the strength to stop these elections. 

“Despite various conspiracies regarding the elections, the elections will be held before next Ramadan and the people of the country will guard the elections,” he told the inaugural session of the district BNP triennial council at the historic Moktarpara ground in the district town.

Salahuddin said more than three thousand people have been victims of extrajudicial killing until the 2024 Student Uprising. 

A massive number of people become victims of enforced disappearances, murders and political torture, he said. 

According to the UN, more than 1,400 people embraced martyrdom in the 2024 Mass Uprising while more than twenty thousand were injured. 

“We have gone through such state injustice,” he said.

Highlighting his own experience, he said, “I myself was a victim of enforced disappearance. I was forced to live in exile for almost ten years, a part of my long life. We do politics of Bangladesh first and Bangladesh last. Our purpose, politics and address is Bangladesh first, Bangladesh first and foremost.”

Salahuddin said, “We will not have any master abroad, we will have friends abroad. The people of this country have proven with their blood that no one from this country can abolish democracy.”

As a result of the Mass Uprising, the fascist forces were forever overthrown from Bangladesh, he said. 

District BNP Convener Professor Dr. Md. Anwarul Haque chaired the programme while Chairperson's Advisory Council member Syed Alamgir, BNP Joint Secretary General Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel, Organizing Secretary Md. Shariful Alam, Legal Affairs Secretary Barrister Kaiser Kamal, former State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar, among others, spoke.

Netrakona town was decorated with banners and festoons marking the triennial conference organized after a long 11 years. 

After the first session, direct voting of 1,515 councillors is underway in the election of president and general secretary.

According to party sources, the last district BNP conference was held on October 25, 2014. 

In that conference, freedom fighter Md. Ashraf Uddin Khan was elected president, Professor Dr. Md. Anwarul Haque was elected general secretary and SM Moniruzzaman Dudu was elected organizing secretary.

Later, as the term of the committee expired, the district committee was dissolved and a 67-member convening committee was formed. Dr. Md. Anwarul Haque was the convener and Dr. Md. Rafiqul Islam Hilali was the member secretary.