The Gono Odhikar Parishad's sudden conference in Kakrail on Friday demanding a ban on Jatiyo Party resulted in a confrontation with security force members and police, leaving GOP President Nurul Haque Nur severely injured.
On the surface, the plan for another party's fall may not have been executed properly given the damage accrued.
But a spark was certainly lit.
As visuals of a battered Nur spread through social media like wildfire, calls within and outside his party grew to ban Jatiyo Party immediately.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Attorney General Asaduzzaman said the Jatiyo Party had betrayed the country's people from 1982 to 1990.
He said its true colours were surfacing again and the demand to ban it would be scruntinised.
As discussions around the party grows, Jatiyo Party finds itself in the limelight once again before a national election is set to be held.
It's a familiar place for the party except with one marked difference – the sway it had to protect it from blowback for decades may now have dissipated.
On the ransacked remains of its central office – which fell to the ire of protesters earlier on Saturday following the brutal attack on Nur – the cloak of power has been completely disrobed.
Is the reality that the once great emperor no longer has any new clothes?
The watershed in '91
The year is 1991.
General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, recently toppled, sits behind bars as Bangladesh gears up for its first free and fair election.
It's a momentous occasion, one never witnessed before.
Ershad, a political prisoner, is considered an afterthought. He is a dictator, fallen and forgotten.
The primary contest is between the two major parties, the BNP and the Awami League, both of whom played key roles in Ershad's removal from power.
At the helm of the BNP and AL are Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina respectively. Neither contested an election before.
Victory for either would create history.
And so the election was held in frenetic fervour. And then came the spanner – Jatiyo Party, although being handed a drubbing, still secured 35 seats.
These 35 seats – compared to Khaleda's 140 and Hasina's 88 – would gain significance in just a few years.
In the ashes of his fall, Ershad could've tasted something more coveted than just having power – the ability to give power. A kingmaker was born.
Era of an uneasy alliance
By the time 1996 came around, the scars of political turmoil were already evident.
A controversial February election saw a boycott from most opposition parties, leaving the BNP in a tricky situation.
The Awami League, the Jatiyo Party, and Jamaat-e-Islami, all united in their demand to bring back the "caretaker government" system to oversee general elections.
When a caretaker government finally came and held a snap election in June the same year, it saw the highest voter turnout till date.
The AL won 146 seats, while the BNP managed to secure 116. Jatiyo Party's stock had fallen in comparison, but it still managed to get 32 seats.
For Hasina, however, the big win came with a headache – without the 151 seats required for an absolute majority, it wouldn't be able to form a government.
Jatiyo Party, a sworn foe, now looked like a friend to be made.
Despite Ershad still in jail, an uneasy alliance was made, leading to the formation of a coalition government.
The Jatiyo Party provided parliamentary support, allowing Hasina to be sworn in as prime minister. In exchange, they got a seat in the cabinet. When then party secretary general Anwar Hossain Manju was made the communications minister, a clear message was given.
Ershad was also eventually released on bail in 1997.
Slipping on splits
The lead up to the 2001 elections was marked by an internal strife for Jatiyo Party.
The uneasy alliance with the AL was no longer tenable for Ershad. But this view wasn't shared by Anwar Hossain Manju, who decided to break away and form his own faction of the Jatiyo Party.
Ershad, meanwhile, decided to ally the party with the BNP, but this alliance, too, broke down before the election. This resulted in another split.
Naziur Rahman Manzur maintained a coalition with the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance, breaking away from Ershad's faction.
By 2000, Ershad was sentenced in a corruption case. As a result, he could not contest the 2001 elections.
The fragmentation of the party was evident in the results, with each faction winning only a handful of seats. The main Jatiyo Party (Ershad faction) won 14 seats, while the Naziur faction won four and the Manju faction secured one.
A chink in Jatiyo Party's armour was thus found: an easy tug at the frayed edges would mean more splits, making the party less of a threat.
The 2001 election resulted in a victory for BNP's Four-Party Alliance. Khaleda became the prime minister.
The Grand Alliance
BNP's second tenure under Khaleda ended similarly to the first. The method of polls-time government led to much unrest, eventually leading to the formation of a military-backed caretaker government.
Both Hasina and Khaleda were also jailed over corruption charges.
Their release came afterward, but the political environment remained highly uncertain.
As the BNP government approached the end of its tenure in 2006, Ershad first aligned himself with the ruling Four-Party Alliance following discussions with Tarique Rahman and Lutfozzaman Babar, and later a meeting with Khaleda Zia at her Mainul Road residence.
Yet, by late October, he abruptly declared that he was not part of the alliance—only to reverse his stance the very next day.
Soon after, he disappeared from public view for three days before re-emerging at Paltan Maidan, where he formally joined Sheikh Hasina's Awami League-led Grand Alliance, declaring himself finally free.
Ershad reached an agreement with the AL while he was released from jail on bail in a corruption case – had.
It was said that Ershad's legal troubles may have played a role.
For the AL, the calculation was simple: Take Ershad and you secure Rangpur and the northern seats in his stronghold. The vote bank was for the taking.
It would also help AL position itself as being anti-BNP.
Ershad joined AL in what would become known as the Grand Alliance comprising 14 other parties.
In November 2008, the High Court stayed Ershad's conviction, effectively clearing the way for him to contest polls—widely perceived as a result of political negotiations.
Ershad's political rehabilitation had arrived.
And it was much needed. Just a few months earlier, he was in the limelight again for all the wrong reasons.
In January of that year, police recorded a complaint from journalist Masud Kamal alleging that Ershad's supporters "confined" him in his house for three hours.
Bidisha, estranged wife of Ershad, alleged that Kamal had been taken away from in front of her flat, where the journalist had gone to interview her for Bangla-language weekly Saptahik 2000.
With an AL alliance, legal woes would be a thing of the past for Ershad and he took it.
The AL secured a landslide win of 230 seats with Ershad chipping in with 27 more.
For Ershad, it was also his last real taste of electoral clout.
The enemy you know
By the time the 2014 elections came about, the AL had abolished the caretaker government it once fought tooth and nail for.
The decision deepened the political crisis, with BNP and its allies boycotting the polls.
But an election without opposition would mean nothing.
The AL thus viewed Jatiyo Party's participation as essential for giving the election a semblance of legitimacy.
But Ershad, true to form, had other things on his mind. Two years earlier he had visited India and met with top leaders, including then prime minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and president Pranab Mukherjee.
Reports suggest he used this visit to solidify his political relevance ahead of the 2014 general elections.
A free man, Ershad announced that his party would not participate in the polls in December 2013.
The dramatic U-turn spurred the AL government to action.
Soon after Ershad ordered his party candidates to withdraw nominations, he was picked up by security forces and taken to the Combined Military Hospital on the pretext of a health crisis.
Officially, it was described as "treatment for illness".
But even the most novice political analyst knew this was a house arrest.
With Ershad unable to coordinate the boycott, the Jatiyo Party contested the polls and even won 34 seats.
However, a highly unusual arrangement was put in place: some Jatiyo Party members also joined the government cabinet.
This unprecedented situation led to the "opposition at home" moniker.
After the election, Ershad was made Special Envoy to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, while Jatiyo Party was recognised as the official opposition in Parliament – if only in name.
End of Ershad
The 2018 election was also highly controversial, with the BNP and its allies participating at the last moment but alleging widespread irregularities.
Jatiyo Party remained AL's main opposition.
After winning 22 seats, Ershad's wife, Raushan Ershad was declared the leader of the opposition.
Ershad was sidelined. When he passed away a year later, his brother GM Quader assumed the chairmanship.
By 2024, the Jatiyo Party once again wore its old hat: that of a controlled opposition.
With the main opposition absent, the Jatiyo Party's participation was once again crucial to give the election credibility.
Its presence, for many, was just to function as the last vestige of a multi-party democracy, even if only by appearance.
But after Hasina's fall, Jatiyo Party's courtship began to be questioned.
In October last year, the party's headquarters was set on fire by "Anti-Fascist Students-Workers".
GM Quader saw his Rangpur home attacked in May this year, showing perhaps the party's stronghold wasn't as fortified as before.
On Saturday, Jatiyo Party saw its offices in different districts come under attack.
For now, there remains no one for the party to make an overture to.
For now, there remains little in the way of a comeback.
Heavy indeed is the head wearing the crown. But weary, too, is the hand that does the crowning.
For Jatiyo Party, a weakened one at that, racked by at least seven different splits over the years, the future doesn't look too promising. Rehabilitation, or the promise of it, seems a long way off.
But in time, will it find former allies to turn to? Their embrace, once again, will spell the fate of the party.
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