In Gopalganj, Mujib's legacy presents a different political reality
In the absence of the AL, their arch rival the BNP senses an opportunity. But seizing that opportunity carries a cost in Gopalganj.
The town of Gopalganj lies just over 150 kilometre south of Dhaka, but politically, the town - indeed, the whole district of over 1.3 million people - seems light years away from the capital. A three-hour road trip including the Padma Bridge and some of the finest highways in the country, connects the capital with a district where Bangabandhu's legacy still reigns supreme.
In the gentle February warmth of a Sunday afternoon, some 150 former freedom fighters gathered in the first floor auditorium of the multi-storey Muktijoddha Complex building. The audience, mostly men over 70 years of age, but also women of various age, had gathered to listen to Dr KM Babar, the candidate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Gopalganj, the birthplace of the nation's founding-president Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has long seen as a "fortress" of the Awami League, which remains banned from participating in the February 12 general elections. In the absence of the AL, their arch rival the BNP senses an opportunity. But seizing that opportunity carries a cost in Gopalganj.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
"Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the greatest leader in the country's history," a local BNP leader and former freedom fighter Sabed Ali said while addressing the gathering. "We fought the liberation war in his name."
To win the hearts and minds of the Gopalganj voters, the BNP has to acknowledge the leadership of Sheikh Mujib in the liberation war. They have to pledge undying support for the ideals of the 1971 war.
"The people of Gopalganj vote for the AL's boat symbol for one reason only - their love for Bangabandhu," said a local journalist.
Just half an hour drive from Goplanganj town centre, past the sprawling recently-built medical complex with a swish nursing college, lies Tungipara. For locals and many Bangladeshis up and down the country, this is hallowed ground. This is where Sheikh Mujib is buried.
Mohammad Habibur Rahman is a young lawyer and a former BNP leader. Once he decided to contest the elections in the constituency of Gopalganj-3, which has Tungipara at its heart, Rahman resigned from the BNP and submitted his nomination papers as an independent candidate.
Rahman began his campaign after praying for Mujib's soul at the late leader's gravesite. Sunday afternoon we caught up him in the village of Tripolli.
"This area is Awami League's fortress. People here adore Bangabandhu, they adore Sheikh Hasina," Rahman said while talking to journalists. "I feel that, as the architect of our independence, Bangabandhu is a national leader, a great leader, a son of this soil, I am also a local lad, and I personally think we need to respect him and I have started my campaign by showing that respect."
"Liberation war of 1971 is close to our hearts, it has to be. We would not have our red and green flag if it was not for 1971," he added.
Villagers who had gathered around to hear Rahman talk began to disperse as the election hopeful began to walk ahead, along the narrow asphalt road shaded by trees. The distinctive smell of cow dung drying in the sun wafted through the village and its huts with corrugated tin roofs.
The villagers began to open up as soon as the campaign team were out of earshot. The Hindu villagers said that, unlike in other places, there were no violence against them in Tungipara following the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government in 2024. Their trauma was mostly psychological.
"We were hurt when we learnt of Hasina leaving the country," Ajit Mondal, one of the villagers, said. "She made a mistake by going to Delhi. She should have taken shelter here in Tungipara, we would have protected her with our lives."
Things have moved on since then, but their love of Mujib has not. They remain voters of "boat" but acknowledge that they would have to make a different choice this time.
"Many of us don't want to vote, but we feel have to vote for our own safety," one of them said, suggesting that their absence at polling centres would be "noted." But, to a man they declined to say which candidate they might choose in the absence of their previous MP, Sheikh Hasina.
Back in Gopalganj town, the Gopalganj Government College symbolically demonstrates the divergence of ground reality here and the rest of the country.
As elsewhere, the government ordered the name of the college to be changed from its previous Government Bangabandhu College. The authorities complied. But a large statue of Mujib remains intact. And so does a large mural of Bangabandhu next to the college's Shahid Minar.
The head of the economics department, Dr Habibur Rahman was at pains to explain that, as a government officer, he was not at liberty to comment on the political situation in the country. But he did not shy away from explaining the artistic background to the statue.
"This was a moment from Bangabandhu's historic speech of March 7, 1971," he said of the statue with the raised arm and finger pointing outward.
While in Dhaka and elsewhere Sheikh Mujib's portraits, murals and statues were torn down by political activists, in Gopalganj they remain untouched.
In the Muktijoddha Complex, the BNP's Dr Babar acknowledged that winning support locally would require recognition of some ground realities that are different from other parts of the country.
"We want to win over the former Awami League voters through love and by standing by their ideals, their feelings and emotions. Gopalganj is the birthplace of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the people of this district own the legacy of 1971, they will not vote for the enemies of 1971."
Gopalganj did not experience any of the violence which characterised the anti-Hasina movement of 2024. But the town carries a more recent scar, a fallout of the uprising that ousted Awami League from power.
The National Citizens Party or NCP's ill-judged decision to storm into Gopalganj on July 16 last year triggered widespread violence, as thousands of people gathered to chase them out of town. In the ensuring violence security forces shot dead five local people and scores were wounded.
Local journalists said nearly two dozen cases were filed by police following the clashes, with 1,600 accused. As most of the accused are "anonymous," local men in the town and nearby villages are fearful of venturing out.
Local journalists say that, with so many unnamed accused in the cases, the police are at liberty to detain anyone and show them arrested in one of these cases.
The writer is former Head, BBC Bangla and former Managing Editor, VOA Bangla. The writer can be contacted at: sabir.mustafa@gmail.com. Follow on X: @Sabir59
