Failure to implement referendum verdict is root of the country's crisis: Mamunul Haque at long march inauguration

Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis amir Mamunul Haque has said the root cause of Bangladesh's current crisis, the deterioration of law and order, the rise in essential prices, terrorism and extortion is the failure to reform the constitution and to implement the referendum verdict. He made the remarks on Saturday (31 October) morning at the inaugural rally of the 11-party unity's Dhaka-Khulna-Jhenaidah-Kushtia long march at the south gate of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in the capital. After the inaugural rally, the long march set off from the south gate at 8:20am.

The 11-party unity organised the long march with demands including implementation of the referendum verdict, trial of the July massacre, resolving the electricity, oil, gas and fertiliser crises, checking the rise in essential prices, stopping corruption, extortion and occupation, improving law and order and ending narrow partisan appointments.

The rally began at 7am, formally opening with a speech by Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general Dr HM Hamidur Rahman Azad, after Qari Belal Hossain recited from the Holy Quran. In his opening speech Azad said: 'Our long march is to realise the people's demands. A constitution reform committee must be formed immediately to reform the constitution. Otherwise they will have to leave power. People are gasping because of the rise in essential prices.'

Mamunul Haque said the harvest of the July revolution would be brought home by reforming the constitution through implementing the referendum verdict.

He said: 'Just as we have repeatedly expressed and re-expressed our commitment to the July revolution in unequivocal language, we have repeatedly raised the constitutional demand to implement the people's verdict of the referendum held on the basis of the July Charter. Unfortunately the current government is in no way ready to show respect for this verdict of the people. Through various irrelevant talk they are not only misleading the public, they are repeatedly dishonouring this verdict.'

Mamunul Haque said: 'On 12 February 2026, two elections were held at the same time. One was the election to form a government, the parliamentary election. The other was the election to repair the state, the referendum election. The current government won the parliamentary election with 50 percent of the vote, although there are allegations and evidence of an election-engineering mechanism there. In contrast, the state-repair referendum election won with 70 percent of the vote.'

Outlining the process for implementing the verdict, he said: 'It was agreed that a Constitution Reform Council would be formed to repair the state. In the interim government's period, on the basis of consensus among 33 political parties, the historic intention of the July revolution was to repair the state by reforming the constitution through implementing the referendum verdict through reforms — that intention was to be carried out.'

He added: 'Standing in parliament, the government's spokesperson has tried to brand as illegal the referendum meant to implement this intention after the July uprising. We have said repeatedly: of two twin children born from the same mother's womb, if one is illegal, the second can never be legal. If either is illegal, the parliamentary election held under the same election schedule cannot be legal, the government cannot be legal.'

Presenting the overall situation, Mamunul Haque said: 'Today's crisis in Bangladesh, the deterioration of law and order, the extreme rise in essential prices, people's important rights including oil, gas, electricity and fertiliser are beyond their reach. The whole country is covered in terrorism and extortion. The government has shamelessly partisanised the administration. The root problem behind all of this is not reforming the constitution and not implementing the referendum verdict.'

On the 11-party unity's movement he said: 'Today the 11 parties have taken to the field with the movement and struggle to implement the referendum verdict; in the second phase, for the third time, the historic long march journey has begun toward Bangladesh's southern region. God willing, uniting the people of the whole of Bangladesh, we will bring home the harvest of the July revolution by reforming the constitution through implementing the referendum verdict.'

The chief guest at the rally was opposition leader in the National Parliament and Jamaat-e-Islami amir Dr Shafiqur Rahman. Special guests who spoke included opposition chief whip and NCP convener Nahid Islam, LDP chairman Col (retd) Oli Ahmed Bir Bikram, Jamaat secretary general Mia Golam Parwar, Bangladesh Nezame Islam Party amir Maulana Abdul Kaiyum Sobhani, Amar Bangladesh Party president Mujibur Rahman Manju, Jatiya Ganatantrik Party vice-president Engineer Rashed Pradhan, Bangladesh Labour Party chairman Dr Mostafizur Rahman Iran, Bangladesh Development Party chairman Advocate Anwarul Islam Chan, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan secretary general Mufti Fakhrul Islam and Islami Chhatra Shibir central president Nurul Islam Saddam, among the 11-party unity's top leaders.