In Bangladeshi politics, parties rarely rise to prominence by accident. When a political formation like the Jatiyo Party (JaPa) – long dismissed as a marginal, opportunistic, or even redundant force – suddenly finds itself thrust into the national spotlight, it is worth asking: whose interests are being served? The answer, in my suspect, lies less in the party’s strength than in the desperation of those engineering Bangladesh’s political future from behind the scenes.

At the center of this crisis stands Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate turned “caretaker administrator”. Yunus has made no secret of his distaste for genuine elections. For him, a credible, competitive election is not the culmination of the interim government’s work – it is its death sentence. Once an elected government assumes office, Yunus’s carefully constructed influence evaporates. His only option is to delay, distort, or engineer elections so that the “right” winners—those acceptable to his patrons abroad – emerge triumphant. In this theater, the Jatiyo Party is cast not as a protagonist, but as a prop.

The latest episode speaks volumes. The Chief Election Commissioner recently declared, almost in passing, that the Jatiyo Party’s electoral symbol – the plough – apparently has no rightful “owner.” One of Bangladesh’s oldest political parties, founded under the iron-fisted rule of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, suddenly found its most basic identity questioned. To describe this as laughable would be generous; it is closer to sinister. Political parties are not start-ups whose trademarks can be disputed in court. Symbols are part of Bangladesh’s electoral DNA. To suggest otherwise is not incompetence. It is sabotage.

This is not the first-time electoral symbols have been weaponized. In........

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