Staff Correspondent:

The National Citizen Party (NCP) has said the National Consensus Commission suddenly released a draft of the July Charter without any prior discussion although it proposed six decision-making processes.

NCP joint convener Javed Rasin said, “We strongly oppose this. There was no discussion on how the dialogue would be conducted, yet they went ahead and released a draft — we cannot accept this.”

Javed Rasin made these remarks during the break of the 21st day of the second phase of the National Consensus Commission’s dialogue at the Foreign Service Academy on Tuesday.

He said, “We have made it clear that the issues on which consensus has been reached must be given legal grounds before the election, and the next parliamentary election must be held on that basis.”

Javed Rasin said that discussions had been ongoing regarding the ‘ranked choice’ method in relation to the caretaker government system over the past few days.

He said, “According to this method, a proposal was made today to form a seven-member committee by adding two more members from the judiciary, who will cast votes.”

He added, “We have agreed to this proposal. Almost all political parties have agreed with us, except for the BNP and a few of its allies.”

The NCP leader said that the National Citizen Party has stated it will decide through internal discussions whether to sign the July Charter if the fundamental reforms, which the party deems essential to dismantle the ‘fascist structure’, are not implemented.

Today’s discussion included the participation of 30 political parties, including the BNP, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, National Citizen Party (NCP), Islami Andolan, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), and Ganosamhati Andolan.

The discussion was presided over by National Consensus Commission Vice-President Ali Riaz. It was moderated by Monir Haider, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser. Others present included Safar Raj Hossain, justice Emdadul Haque, Badiul Alam Majumdar, Iftekharuzzaman, and Aiyub Mia.