Jamaat not a ‘reliable ally’, NCP may pay ‘heavy price’, says Samantha

Samantha Sharmin, senior joint convenor of the National Citizen Party (NCP), has said Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is “not a reliable ally” and warned that the party may have to “pay a heavy price” if it seeks cooperation or reaches any agreement with the Islamist group.

She made the remarks in a Facebook post on Sunday morning amid growing debate over possible seat-sharing and alliance talks between the NCP and Jamaat ahead of the upcoming national election.

In the past few days, discussions over a potential alliance between the youth-led party, which emerged from the mass uprising of 2024, and Jamaat have come to the fore after leaders of both sides acknowledged the issue.

The matter has since drawn widespread criticism in the public sphere.

Internal divisions have also surfaced within the NCP.

On Saturday night, one of the party’s senior leaders resigned and announced plans to contest the election independently.

On the same day, 30 central leaders submitted a letter to the party convener opposing any alliance with Jamaat.

Despite the internal resistance, there are indications that the party may still move towards an alliance, given its broader support base.

In her Facebook post, Samantha wrote: “Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is not a reliable ally. I think the NCP will have to pay a heavy price for any cooperation or agreement with its political position or philosophy.”

Referring to recent remarks by Jamaat leaders, she said they had suggested that any party could form an alliance with Jamaat if it agreed with what they described as Jamaat’s “July spirit” and vision for Bangladesh.

“According to the National Citizen Party’s position so far, its basic principles and state philosophy are completely different from Jamaat,” she wrote.

She said the NCP had been built around the principles of justice, reform and the demand for a Constituent Assembly election, which she described as the foundation of a “Second Republic”.

Samantha also attached a previous Facebook post by the party's Convenor Nahid Islam, in which he had described the demand for proportional representation (PR) in the lower house of parliament as “political fraud”.

“My current position is consistent with the party’s stance over the last one and a half years,” she said, adding that Jamaat had sought to obstruct reform efforts by raising demands for PR in the lower house.

“As a result, the NCP convenor had said that an alliance with forces opposed to reform was not possible,” she wrote.

She recalled that since the July march, the party leadership had repeatedly announced plans to field a single candidate in all 300 constituencies and to contest the election independently, inviting candidates from across the country.

Samantha said raising concerns about an alliance with Jamaat did not mean taking a position in favour of the BNP.

“Rather, I believe the NCP’s long-standing positions on various issues, which have been appreciated in different quarters, are correct,” she wrote.

“I consider myself a soldier of this ideology.”

She warned that forming alliances with either BNP or Jamaat would mean departing from the organisational and political principles on which the NCP was founded.