Delaying polls beyond Feb will risk regional security, BNP warns at NCC talks

In a stark political warning that elevates electoral timing to a matter of national and regional security, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed has said that failure to hold national elections by February 2025 could destabilise not just Bangladesh but the broader South Asian region. Speaking at Sunday’s high-stakes National Consensus Commission meeting chaired by Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus, convened to chart the implementation roadmap for the July 2025 National Charter, Salahuddin drew a hard line: reforms and trials are continuous processes, but elections are non-negotiable deadlines. “Reforms will continue, they must. Trials for past injustices will go on, under any government. But elections cannot be made conditional,” Salahuddin asserted. “If elections are not held in...