On February 28, 2025, Bangladesh witnessed the birth of the National Citizens Party (NCP), or Jatiya Nagorik Party (NJP) in Bengali. Emerging from the embers of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement (ADSM)—the very force that toppled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, 2024, the NCP represents both hope and uncertainty

The National Citizens Party (NCP) or Jatiya Nagorik Party (NJP) in Bengali, was born in Bangladesh on February 28, 2025. It is a progeny of the student leaders who spearheaded the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement (ADSM) that ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina from power on August 5, 2024, and the National Citizens Committee (NCP) or the Jatiya Nagorik Committee (JNC), that emerged from the same political cradle on September 8, 2024.

The country was pregnant with it for almost seven months. A report by Reuters, datelined August 16, 2024, and issued under the heading ‘Student protesters plan new party to cement their revolution,’ quoted Mahfuz Alam, who then chaired a committee charged with liaising between the interim government, which had assumed office on August 8, and groups like teachers and activists, that the decision to form such a party would be known in about a month. It further quoted Alam, who had been a key leader of the ADSM and is now an adviser to the interim government, as saying, “People are tired of the two political parties (obviously the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party). They trust in (sic) us.”

According to the report, Nahid Islam, another of ADSM’s important leaders, who resigned as an adviser on February 25 and is now the convener and leader of the NCP, said that the spirit of the students’ movement was to build a new Bangladesh where no fascist or autocrat could return. He had added, “To achieve that, we need structural reforms, which will undoubtedly require some time.” Nahid further stated that the government was not heeding calls by the Awami League and BNP to hold new elections as early as the fall (of 2024). Another Reuters’ report by Ruma Paul, Krishn Kaushik, Devjyot Ghoshal and Krishna N Das, carried under the headline “Insight: Bangladesh student protestors eye new party to cement their revolution” and datelined August 16, 2024, however, cited Alam as having said on Facebook that his statement to Reuters “had come out wrong” and that “We are not thinking about political organisations right........

© The Pioneer