Is the NCP becoming what it once rejected?

The National Citizen Party (NCP) was born with a claim that it would not practise politics as usual. Emerging from the ashes of the July uprising, it asked to be seen as a break from the old habits of convenience and compromise, pledging to distinguish itself through its political language, practice, and a sharper sense of responsibility.

That claim now faces an existential test.

Speculations swirling around a potential Jamaat-NCP alliance finally ended on Sunday afternoon when, at a press conference at the National Press Club, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman officially announced a new electoral front. The NCP, alongside Colonel (Retd.) Oli Ahmed's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has now joined Jamaat's existing coalition—a definitive moment of reckoning for NCP.

A series of developments leading to the formal announcement has turned this coalition into an existential crisis for the party. Earlier, Tasnim Jara, a highly visible leader of NCP, resigned from her post as senior joint secretary to contest the Dhaka-9 constituency as an independent. The crisis then deepened with the resignation of Tajnuva Jabeen, a joint convener, and also a formal letter from 30 central committee members opposing any political alliance or seat-sharing arrangement with Jamaat.

Seat-sharing is not unusual in Bangladesh's politics. Elections are fought constituency by constituency, and any success depends on organisation, polling agents, and the capacity to protect votes. New parties often struggle because such structures take years to build. From a narrow electoral perspective, alliances can appear practical, even necessary. But the NCP did not enter politics asking to be judged by that standard alone.

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Since its inception, NCP presented itself as the political expression. Its leaders spoke against shortcuts, recycled alignments, and moral ambiguity. They promised a new arrangement, repeatedly invoking "noya bondobosto" as a governing principle. That positioning mattered. It is why many young people, first-time participants, and politically unaffiliated citizens placed their trust in the party. The question is: what has changed then?

The official announcement validates the disturbing allegations made by Tajnuva Jabeen in a Facebook post upon her resignation. In it, she argued that the drastic cut in nominations, from 125 to a mere 30-40, was not an emergency measure, but a trap. The timing of Sunday's press conference—just a day before the final nomination deadline—confirms this view. By stalling the announcement until the eleventh hour, the NCP leadership effectively checkmated their own aspirants. Candidates who spent months campaigning, believing they were part of a nationwide effort to contest all seats, have been abandoned with no time to regroup as independents.

This procedural play is, in many ways, more damaging than the ideological one. ​As Jabeen pointed out, trust matters more than ideology. Inviting nominations with public fanfare, only to discard grassroots organisers in favour of a deal yielding fewer seats than even smaller Islamist factions are negotiating, signals a deep betrayal. It suggests the "July force" was willing to sacrifice the aspirations of the many to secure safe passage for a select few at the top.

The alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami also carries a weight that goes far beyond seat arithmetic. Jamaat's opposition to independence in 1971 and its role during the Liberation War are part of Bangladesh's mainstream political history. That history and resultant trust gap cannot be neutralised through electoral mathematics alone.

Tasnim Jara's decision brings the evolving tension into sharp focus. Announcing her independent candidacy, she acknowledged the disadvantages of running without party infrastructure, an organised worker base, or institutional access to security and administration. Yet she chose that path, citing her commitment to a new political culture and the promise she had made to voters. Her exit, alongside Jabeen's, also exposes a widening gender fault line. Reports suggest that other women leaders in senior positions feel similarly alienated. For a party that prided itself on the inclusive spirit of the barricades, the quiet and potentially growing exodus of women leaders represents a serious failure of representation.

The NCP central committee letter also makes it impossible to dismiss the issue as personal dissent. The 30 signatories invoke the party's declared ideology, the historical responsibility of the July uprising, and democratic ethics. They explicitly cite Jamaat's political past, particularly its role in 1971, as incompatible with the NCP's values. The letter further accused the prospective partner of engaging in espionage and sabotage within other parties and of conducting character assassination campaigns against the NCP's own female members through online platforms. That such warnings from leaders have been ignored is quite telling about the direction of the party.

Funding adds another layer of complications. The NCP presented itself as a citizen-funded alternative to patronage politics. Crowdfunding is not just a financial mechanism here; it is a political contract. Many contributors donated on the assumption that the party would not compromise with forces they consider historically and morally discredited. If the party now moves in a direction that violates that understanding, the cost may extend well beyond this election. ​Warnings came from within the broader July movement as well. Former coordinators like Abdul Kader cautioned that any alliance could damage the future of youth politics.

​The NCP claimed to represent a new arrangement. Instead, it has silenced its own aspirants through procedural traps, trading its political promise for short-term expediency. ​The shapla koli has now officially been planted in Jamaat's garden. What will it do next?

Arafat Rahaman is a  journalist at The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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