Kolkata: Violent protests are back on Dhaka streets and have reached the doorsteps of Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin Chuppu’s official residence.
After nationwide student protests made former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flee Dhaka and take shelter in Delhi on 5 August, protesters are now demanding the sacking of Chuppu for saying in an interview that he did not receive Hasina’s resignation letter.
The statement has sent Bangladesh into a tizzy, and protesters clashed with the police in front of the president’s residence, Bangabhaban, on Tuesday, injuring 25 police officers.
The Dhaka Tribune reported on 23 October that protesters, on Tuesday evening, attempted to break through the barricades and enter the premises. “The police then used batons and sound grenades to disperse them, during which three people, including students, were injured. Following this, the protesters retaliated, throwing stones at the police and even hitting officers with sticks after climbing onto police vehicles,” the report said.
Law adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government, Asif Nazrul, meanwhile, has called Chuppu’s statement “a lie”. Nazrul said the president’s statement was akin to violating his oath of office. “This is because he, himself, along with the chiefs of the three services, in his address to the nation at 11.20 pm on 5 August, said the former prime minister submitted her resignation letter to him, and he received the letter,” Prothom Alo quoted Nazrul as saying.
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Did the president lie?
On 21 October, Dhaka-based political journalist Benoy Dutta shared on X a clip from President Chuppu’s address to the nation and tweeted: “Do you have Sheikh Hasina’s resignation letter? Or Not?.”
It is pretty evident from the video what the truth is, Dutta said, speaking to ThePrint from Dhaka. The video—a clipping of Chuppu’s address to the nation at 11.20 pm Bangladesh local time on 5 August—shows the president saying that Sheikh Hasina submitted her resignation letter to him, and he received the letter. On that day, Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh in a military helicopter as protesters marched towards her official residence.
The current controversy erupted when senior journalist Matiur Rahman Chowdhury met the president, and the magazine Janatar Chokh ran Chuppu’s interview on 20 October. In the interview, the president said he only heard that Sheikh Hasina had resigned, but he did not have any documentary evidence.
“I tried [to collect the resignation letter] many times but failed. Maybe she did not get the time,” the president told Chowdhury. “When things came under control, one day, the cabinet secretary came to collect the copy of the resignation letter. I told him that I, too, am looking for it.”
A day after the interview was published, Asif Nazrul said: “If you contradict something you have said in front of the whole nation, then that is akin to misconduct. Then the question arises — if you have the mental capacity to serve as the president. These questions may arise…you have created the scope for that.”
After Nazrul’s sharp comments, Chuppu urged the people to refrain from creating any further controversy over Hasina’s resignation. The president clarified that all questions on Hasina’s resignation and departure were thoroughly addressed in ‘Special Reference No. 01/2024’, as outlined in the Bangladesh Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruling on 8 August.
However, the controversy brought to the fore the fact that Chuppu has been a Hasina loyalist, and the current dispensation led by Muhammad Yunus may use it to look for a new president.
Speaking to ThePrint over the phone from Dhaka, political journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon said that though the president is supposed to be neutral, it is well-known in Bangladesh that Chuppu has, for long, been a Hasina loyalist.
“Chuppu has been actively involved with Awami League since his student activism days. And he will never question or criticise the 1971 war of independence that many in the current dispensation do. Which is why many in the Yunus administration would want him to go. But the constitution gives no provision for the sacking of a president in the current circumstances,” Khokon said.
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What happens now?
As the demand for Chuppu’s removal brings protesters to the streets, constitutional expert Dr Shahdeen Malik told The Business Standard that Bangladesh’s parliament, according to the existing provisions of the constitution, can impeach the president. However, the parliament was dissolved after the change of government, so that option no longer exists. “Alternatively, the president can choose to resign to the speaker if he wishes. But that is not possible as the speaker has resigned and the deputy speaker is in jail,” Malik said.
The veteran jurist said that despite the demand for Chuppu’s removal, it is not currently possible under the constitution. But, if there is no resignation letter from Sheikh Hasina, the interim government was put in place on what basis?
Khokon said that is the larger question and those demanding Chuppu’s removal are afraid of the answer. “Section 57(a) of the Bangladesh constitution says that the prime ministerial office falls vacant only if the incumbent steps down by writing to the president. But there seems to be no letter. So what now?” Khokon asked.
Exiled Bangladeshi writer-activist Taslima Nasreen tweeted on October 23 that everybody in Bangladesh has lied about the resignation letter. “The army chief said Hasina resigned. The president said Hasina resigned. Yunus said Hasina resigned. But nobody has seen the resignation letter. A resignation letter is like a god, everybody says it is there, but nobody can show or prove it is there,” she wrote. “Sheikh Hasina did not resign from her prime minister post and she is still alive. Therefore, the Yunus government is illegal.”
For Bangladeshi academic and political commentator Sharin Shajahan Naomi, the controversy over Hasina’s missing resignation letter is an unnecessary one. “Thousands have been displaced by floods, law and order is still not in place, our banks are bleeding, and the Chittagong Hill tracts are still unstable. We do not have time for such useless technical quibbles. Let us rebuild broken Bangladesh,” she told ThePrint.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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