Bangladesh: Awami League’s Unique Campaign to Counter Opposition Poll Boycott

Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League has organised an unique “human chain” rally with burn victims of Opposition violence to counter its call to boycott the 7th January parliament polls, using its star campaigner former actress-playwright Tarana Halim to mobilise support and ensure electoral turnout.

Dozens of victims who suffered burn injuries during violence by supporters of the BNP-JAMAAT coalition, who have called for nationwide boycott, turned up at a rally in Dhaka’s Shahbagh on Wednesday, as former actress-playwright and now Awami League’s Central Executive Member Tarana Halim minutely choreographed the event to “generate people’s anger” against the Islamist Opposition and thwart its poll boycott campaign. 

Shahbagh has been the venue of the mass protests to demand punishment for the 1971 war criminals, who perpetrated horrible atrocities during the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan , and many other historic rallies for progressive causes . Tarana Halim has led many of them including the one supporting war crimes trial with her favorite slogan “Amar Mati, Amar Ma, Pakistan hobe na” ( My mother, my land will never be Pakistan) .

“This was by far the most telling event organised by the Awami League and contrasts with its dreary, repetitive speech centric poll rallies,” said political commentator Sukharanjan Dasgupta. “Tarana brings tremendous creativity and energy to the party’s campaigning because she raises issues affecting the commoner and does it with much imagination.”

“The BNP and its radical allies will be hard put to defend their violence to enforce poll boycott because it has led to severe burn injuries to dozens of innocent civilians,” said former Dhaka University vice chancellor Arfin Siddiqui while addressing the rally. 

Bangla Academy chief poet Nurul Huda echoed Siddiqui’s pitch.

“We are not party cadres or supporters of any party. But we cannot accept this mindless Opposition violence which is unleashed on common people. Someone has a right to vote as much as to boycott because violence should have no place in our politics,” said Huda. 

Tarana anchored the event which saw seventeen groups of luminaries like professionals, cultural personalities, students and youths, troop in organised sequences interspersed with burn victims led to the stage by Doctor Samantalal Srn, who heads the critical burns unit in Dhaka’s leading hospital.

“I am a politician but first a human being and a mother or sister. I can’t imagine my apolitical son getting burnt by a molotov cocktail thrown by political activists. This protest is against mindless violence and I urge my countrymen to vote against this violence,” said Tarana Halim, a former minister and chairperson of the Awami League’s cultural front Bangabandhu Sanskritic Jote.

The BNP-JAMAAT has opposed the election after PM Sheikh Hasina rejected their demand for holding the polls under supervision of a neutral caretaker. Their supporters have been involved in firebombings of public transport and fierce street battles with police.