MOHAMMAD AL-MASUM MOLLA

It is often said that patience pays off. For BNP, 2024 is the year its 17 years of perseverance started showing signs of bearing fruit.

However, 2024 started bleakly, with the Awami League helping itself to a fourth consecutive term in an election shunned by the BNP.

The BNP had banked that the Western nations would reject the results given the election was not free, fair and participatory and follow through with punitive measures. Ultimately, the Western world came around, stretching the BNP’s bid to come to power by perhaps another five years.

But by the middle of the year, with soaring inflation, a fraught economy and routine reports of AL men amassing vast amounts of wealth illegally, the public sentiment against the Sheikh Hasina-led government began to sour and the BNP sensed an opening to jumpstart its activities.

Before the BNP could get back on the field to mobilise the aggrieved masses came the university students’ protests centring on quota reform in government jobs.

The protests snowballed into a mass uprising and ultimately toppled the Hasina regime on August 5 -- and turned the tide for the BNP. The party said at least 422 of its activists lost lives in the 36 days.

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