BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said the interim government has no constitutional authority to issue the July Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order 205.
Speaking at a press briefing held at the BNP chairperson’s political office in Gulshan on Wednesday (30 October), Fakhrul said, “Any order must be signed by the president. The interim government has no jurisdiction to pass such an order.”
The press briefing was organized to share decisions from the BNP Standing Committee meeting held the previous night. Fakhrul alleged that the proposals and recommendations made by the National Consensus Commission were “one-sided and forcibly imposed on the nation.”
“Some provisions that were agreed upon by all have been changed without anyone’s knowledge,” he said, adding that the clause stating the proposed reforms would automatically be incorporated into the Constitution after 270 days is “undemocratic and unacceptable.”
According to the Commission’s recommendation, if the proposed constitutional reforms are not enacted within that timeframe, they will automatically take effect as approved in a national referendum—likely to be held alongside the next general election.
Fakhrul described the entire process as “a deception against the nation,” saying, “The so-called Consensus Commission’s year-long discussions were meaningless—a waste of time and resources. In a democracy, it is natural for political parties to have differing opinions.”
BNP Standing Committee members Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan, Selima Rahman, and Salahuddin Ahmed were also present at the briefing.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Fakhrul accused the National Consensus Commission of deceiving the nation by omitting BNP’s “notes of dissent” from its final report submitted to the interim government.
“We were astonished to see that our dissenting notes were missing in the published report. This cannot be called a consensus—it is pure deception with the people and with political parties,” Fakhrul said at a book-launching event at the National Press Club on 29 October.
