Even after strong directives from the party chief to hold the council of BNP's Dhaka city unit, the new convening committee in about last two months could not expedite the matter; rather the progress of the work indicates that it would take another two to three months to hold the council.

Replacing Sadeque Hossain Khoka, former mayor of the capital, Khaleda gave the charge of Dhaka city unit to Mirza Abbas

on July 18, and president of Swechchhasebak Dal Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel was made the member-secretary of its 5 6-member convening committee.

According to the directives, the committee would form the thana and ward level committees within a month and then hold a council for the formation of a final committee of the city unit, which is considered a vital chapter of the party.

Insiders of the convening committee said

the committee had been experiencing different types of problems, including pressure from followers of former city unit boss Khoka and lack of communication skills of the committee members.

Abbas yesterday at press a briefing at BNP headquarters in Nayaplatan admitted that it is not possible to announce the full committee within the time limit. The committee which was formed to form the thana and ward committees could not work as per expectation due to hindrance from the government, he alleged.

Giving an explanation of the failure, he said that as they did not hold councils for a long time, they could not proceed properly. He also said that due to different political programmes of

the party, they could not start the work in time.

However, he hoped that everything would be alright within a few days.

But, sources at the party said half of the 15 teams created by the new city leadership failed to sit with all thana and ward committees in the last one month. Though some of them sit with the local leaders of the thana and wards, they fail to give any constructive message to Abbas.

"It's very tough to undermine Khoka's control on the leaders of the unit, and Abbas could not show any success regarding this problem. If Abbas can remove the control of Khoka in future totally, the committee can work smoothly," several leaders told The Daily Star.