Four leftist parties walk out of reform talks over proposal to drop key constitutional tenets

Four left-leaning parties have staged a walkout from the consensus talks to protest a proposal by the National Consensus Commission to replace Bangladesh’s four founding constitutional principles.

Leaders of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD), the Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal (BaSad), and BaSad (Marxist) walked out of the meeting around 9:20pm.

They later said they would decide later whether to sign the proposed National Charter, reports bdnews24.com.

The parties took part in the talks hosted by the commission at the Foreign Service Academy from 10:30am.

However, by nightfall, they withdrew, accusing the commission of attempting to remove the original four state principles -- nationalism, socialism, democracy, and secularism -- from the Constitution.

CPB General Secretary Ruhin Hossain Prince, JaSaD leader Mushtaq Hossain, BaSad General Secretary Bazlur Rahman Firoz and BaSad (Marxist) Coordinator Masud Rana jointly briefed the media.

They said the commission had suggested replacing the four principles with five new ones: equality, human dignity, social justice, democracy, and religious freedom and harmony.

The parties argued that while they were open to the inclusion of additional values, the foundational principles of the 1972 Constitution must not be removed. They were told they could submit a note of dissent if they disagreed.

Meanwhile, the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, which earlier pushed for reintroducing the Fifth Amendment’s provision of “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah”, did not raise any objection to the latest proposal. The NCP fully backed the commission's draft.

“We cannot allow wordplay to dilute the values earned through the Liberation War,” Prince said.

The leftist bloc further warned that if such proposals persisted, their continued participation in the consensus dialogue would be at risk.