Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) led by Khalequzzaman split up yesterday over ideological differences and the party’s modus operandi.
The new faction of BSD, led by Mubinul Haider Chowdhuy, formally announced the split at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) yesterday.
With Mubinul Haider Chowdhury as its convener, it will hold a national convention of the party within six months to form a new central committee, said current central committee member Shubhrangshu Chakrabarty at the press conference.
The six-member BSD central committee were divided on the question of the party’s ideology.
While one of the groups wanted to pursue the doctrines of Karl Marx and VIadimir Lenin, the other was determined to follow the ideas Shibdas Ghosh, founding general secretary of Socialist Unity Centre of India, BSD officials said.
The new faction will consider Shibdash, as the authority of the international communism movement and lead the party according to his ideals, Mubinul said.
“Most of the district committees and two thirds of party leaders from students’ and women’s fronts have joined us,” claimed Mubinul.
According to party officials, the group also held a two-day meeting which ended yesterday, with its district-level leaders in the capital.
The ideological differences first surfaced at a central committee meeting on February 18-20 this year, when Mubinul and Shubhrangshu claimed that the party had deviated from the political ideology of Shibdas, on which the BSD was founded in 1980. They went on to insist on a return to the original base of the party.
However, BSD general secretary Khalequzzaman, central committee members Bazlur Rashid Firoz, Zahedul Haque Milu, and Razequzzaman Ratan, were in favour of maintaining the party’s ideological status quo.
They argued that the party was founded on the basis of Marxism and Leninism as well as the thoughts of Shibdas.
Earlier in 2010, the BSD suffered another ideological rift that resulted in two of its central leaders, Abdullah Sarker and Saifur Rahman Tapan, quitting the organisation.
