The main opposition party in its manifesto declares that it will take multi-pronged measures to ensure women's empowerment. It speaks of the overall emancipation and progress of the women.
It promises to keep making various efforts for the empowerment of women through ensuring their employment in various sectors, particularly in social welfare, rural development, local government and small and medium industries.
The BNP also promises to provide youths, both male and female, with scientific, technical and vocational education so that they can rid themselves of the curse of unemployment and contribute to nation-building.
Its manifesto mentions neither any discrimination against nor imposes any restrictions on what the Hefajat has termed "free mingling of men and women".
The Hefajat's demands are contrary to what the BNP promises in its manifesto. The Hefajat demands the imposition of a ban on "free-mingling of men and women". If such restrictions are imposed, hundreds of thousands of female workers will be pushed into unemployment; and co-education in schools, colleges and universities will have to be discarded.
That will hamper women's empowerment and will go against the very spirit of the constitution.
The Hefajat has also demanded the scrapping of the women development policy, which contradicts the policy mentioned in the BNP manifesto regarding various steps to be taken for the overall development of women.
The Hefajat's demand for a stop to the building of sculptures at intersections, colleges and universities also runs contrary to what the BNP promises in its manifesto -- to identify various incidents and places related to the War of Liberation and take measures to preserve them.
Besides, at least six of the Hefajat's demands run counter to the country's constitution.
Earlier, at a meeting last month, BNP policymakers discussed the Hefajat demands and resolved that the party did not agree with most of those.
Yet the BNP extended support to the Hefajat's movement. It provided food and drink to Hefajat men who joined the long march to Dhaka on April 6 and a party delegation joined the Hefajat's rally on the day and expressed solidarity with the movement.
The BNP went further on May 5 when party chief
Khaleda ZiaThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
urged party leaders and workers to stand beside the Hefajat men who had suddenly begun a sit-in at Shapla Chattar in the capital, vowing not to leave until their demands were met.
She also urged her party men and the city dwellers to provide the Hefajat men with food and drink.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance even enforced a two-day countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
on May 8 and 9 in protest against the law enforcers' action in driving away Hefajat men from Shapla Chattar in the early hours of May 6, in the process "killing more than two thousand people".
The main opposition, in order to gain political mileage out of a volatile situation, clearly did not go back to its manifesto before extending support to the Hefajat movement. Its organizational weakness has prompted some of its policymakers to rely on the Hefajat men to intensify its one-point movement to oust the government.
But on both occasions, the BNP was upset. That left some lessons for the party to learn.