New Delhi: The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, the largest Islamist party in the country, has said that it is confident of getting Hindu votes in the upcoming national elections scheduled for February 2026.
At a function held in the Satkhira district in Southwest Bangladesh on 20 October, Jamaat secretary general Mia Golam Parwar said that Bangladeshi Hindus often were blamed for voting for the Awami League only.
However, with the political activities of the Awami League now banned in Bangladesh, Hindus would vote for Jamaat in large numbers and prove everyone wrong, BBC Bangla has quoted Parwar as saying.
Bangladesh Hindu rights activist Rupan Guha, however, told ThePrint that Parwar’s statements could have been passed off as dark humour if they had not been so threatening.
“The Jamaat has time and again advocated for a country run by Islamist values—where secularism has no place. To now turn around and ask for Hindu votes means the Jamaat is telling Bangladesh’s minorities to shape up, according to its diktats, or ship out of the country,” Guha said.
In July this year, Jamaat’s Nayeb-e-Ameer and former MP Mujibur Rahman had said that the national parliament should implement Islamic laws only, and there should be no place for any ideas or systems made by man.
“On adding Pakistan’s 24 years and Bangladesh’s 54 years, together, it amounts to 78 years. During this entire period, Islam has not been established [so far] by the national parliament, and not a single law based on the Quran has been [so far] implemented, resulting in unrest, corruption, and widespread suffering for the people,” Mujibur had said.
The BBC Bangla report has further quoted Parwar as saying that Hindus would be safest if they vote for the Jamaat, not any other political party.
“I want to tell Hindus in Bangladesh that if you vote for the Jamaat-e-Islami in the next national elections and bring the party to power, you will be the safest,” Parwar is quoted as saying.
Bangladeshi political journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon told ThePrint that with the elections around the corner, not just the Jamaat but also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the largest political party in Bangladesh after the Awami League, was trying to improve its image and appeal to all sections of the population.
In a viral Facebook post on 18 September, Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairperson Tarique Rahman wrote that his party was rebuilding and reorganising from the grassroots up, “embedding transparency and accountability, to guarantee the trust of the voters across the entirety of the country”.
“Already, more than 7,000 members have faced disciplinary actions, ranging from demotions to expulsions, for corruption, extortion, and misconduct. This has not been an easy decision, but it is a necessary one,” Rahman wrote.
Khokon told ThePrint that it was unlikely, though, that Hindus in Bangladesh would forget what the Jamaat stood for.
“Jamaat opposed the very formation of Bangladesh in 1971 and stood with the Pakistan army, as it killed and raped innocent Bangladeshis to quash the liberation movement. One section of the population that bore the maximum brunt of the torture during that time was the Hindus,” Khokon said.
Interestingly, in a now-viral video, the Jamaat’s Ameer or supreme leader, Dr Shafiqur Rahman, is heard as saying that the party was willing to extend an unconditional apology to anyone who felt wronged by the Jamaat’s past actions.
“From 1947 till now, if the Jamaat-e-Islami has hurt any individual or any institution, we are extending an unconditional apology,” Rahman said at a presser on 22 October.
When asked if the party was sorry for what happened in 1971, Rahman said, “Did we only make mistakes in 1971? As I said, we are sorry for any mistakes we might have made anytime in the country’s history.”
According to the 2022 census, Hindus are the second-largest religious group in Bangladesh, constituting 7.95 percent of the population—roughly 1.31 crore people.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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