Rashed Khan Hopes Nahid Islam Will Resign as MP Within 24 Hours

Rashed Khan, political assistant to the prime minister, has expressed hope that National Citizen Party (NCP) convener Nahid Islam will resign from his seat as a member of parliament within 24 hours. He said this in a social media post last night.

In his post, Rashed Khan wrote that Nahid Islam had commented that, like Sheikh Hasina, Tarique Rahman too is in power illegally, referring to Nahid as the president of an organisation. It was around this comment that Rashed Khan raised the question of his resignation.

He asked how, in a national parliament where the BNP as the governing party is illegal, Nahid Islam can be legal as the opposition chief whip in that same parliament. Through this question, he challenged the consistency of Nahid Islam's position.

Rashed Khan wrote that before comparing Tarique Rahman with Sheikh Hasina and calling the prime minister illegal, Nahid Islam should have resigned from the national parliament.

Yet since he made the statement calling the BNP government illegal before resigning, Rashed Khan commented in the post that if Nahid Islam does not resign after that statement, he will have no moral basis left.

Expressing hope, Rashed Khan said Nahid Islam will prove his morality by resigning within the next 24 hours. At the same time, he also spoke of building a strong movement on the streets to prove the NCP's public support base.

Through this post, a public demand for the resignation of the opposition chief whip has come from a political assistant on the government side, creating fresh debate in parliamentary politics.

Nahid Islam's comment and Rashed Khan's post in response have made clear the difference in political positions between the two sides: on one hand a question about the government's legitimacy, and on the other a counter-question about the questioner's own presence in parliament.

However, no reaction from Nahid Islam or the NCP to Rashed Khan's hope or demand was available in the material for this report. Whether he will actually resign therefore still depends on his own decision.

Attention in political circles will now be on whether Nahid Islam takes any step in the next 24 hours, or responds to this statement.

A decision such as resignation could affect both the opposition's role in parliament and the NCP's political strategy, so discussion around this post is unlikely to remain confined to social media.

In the coming days, reactions to this debate could be seen both in parliament and on the streets, and the first indication of that may come from Nahid Islam's next statement or decision.