Jatiya Party leader alleges Awami League blackmailed his party to join general elections

He claimed other parties which joined the election process were also forced to do so.

GM Quader was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune: “We have not committed any crime. We are being forced into wrongdoing. We do not know why this is happening.”

“The Jatiya Party is a national political party. Despite attempts to bury us, we have risen from the grave. No one can destroy us," he said.

"We are being called allies of the Awami League. But how can that be justified? In 2008, we formed a grand alliance with them in the ninth parliament, but we were not complicit in all of Sheikh Hasina’s wrongdoings. That has been proven," he said.

The Jatiya Party was founded by late President Hussain Muhammad Ershad.

It was part of the Bangladesh Awami League-led Grand Alliance and participated in the previous three general elections despite boycott by other political outfits.

GM Quader made the comments at a time when his party's office was recently vandalised and set on fire by a group of people.

According to reports, the people who set the office on fire marched under the banner of "Anti-fascist students, workers, and masses".

Abdur Rahman, president of Sramik Odhikar Parishad, an associate body of the Gono Odhikar Parishad, told The Daily Star activists of his party were marching with lit torches when some people from the Jatiya Party office building threw brick chunks at them from upstairs.

Jatiya Party, however, refuted the allegations.

Bangladesh witnessed a massive protest over job quota row which later spiralled into a mass movement which led to the ouster of former PM Sheikh Hasina-led government.