LDP leader warns PM Tareq Rahman of conspiracy inside his own party

At a rally at the south gate of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka on 5 August 2026, marking the second anniversary of the July mass uprising, Liberal Democratic Party president Colonel (retd) Oli Ahmad addressed Prime Minister Tareq Rahman, saying that people in his own party did not want him as prime minister and were conspiring to remove him.

Ahmad said he had spent recent months asking the prime minister not to create division or a situation that could trigger his downfall, and he pointed to attacks in three places the previous day as evidence that people inside the prime minister's own party wanted to see him removed.

Urging the prime minister to identify 'agents' inside his own party, Ahmad said the real danger to the government would come from those insiders, not from the LDP.

He rejected suggestions of a move to Jamaat-e-Islami, saying he had not joined that party and that those who had come together were people wanting to protect Bangladesh's sovereignty, build a country free of foreign influence and uphold Islamic values.

Ahmad questioned BNP about its past alliances with Jamaat-e-Islami, recalling that Jamaat helped Begum Khaleda Zia form a government in 1991, joined the 1996 demand for a caretaker government with the Awami League, and had leaders in the 2001 BNP cabinet; he said he was not a member of that cabinet and asked whether it should be called a 'Razakar' cabinet.

He criticised the government over electricity and gas shortages and the occupation of Dhaka's streets by hawkers, saying that if authorities could not control their own party's hawkers, they could not manage 18 crore people, and he cited Iran's example as evidence that faith cannot be confronted.

Ahmad called for national unity to keep alive the spirit of the July uprising, noting that BNP later said it had not been part of that struggle.

He demanded that the government implement the demands, run the country properly and cooperate on an equal footing to build a humane and safe Bangladesh, while rejecting politics based on dividing the people.