B'desh politics heats up, Yunus on the back foot

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rally in Dhaka on Wednesday is a sign of the continuing political ferment in Bangladesh nearly 10 months after the Sheikh Hasina government was deposed and a caretaker administration under Muhammad Yunus took charge.

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The shake-up was meant to usher in political reforms, democratise the polity, and herald a "new republic" under an amended Constitution. But the picture from Dhaka is of a nation adrift.

The political consensus that enabled the appointment of the interim government has frayed with Yunus, the chief advisor and head of the caretaker administration, at odds with the major political parties and the army.