Former Local Govt. Minister, BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan passed away 12:01am on Wednesday, 28 July Dhaka.He was suffuring for lung cancer.
His legion of supporters, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) president Hasanul Haque Inu and his wife, Communist Party of Bangladesh’s presidium member Haider Akbar Khan Rono visited Square Hospitals to pay their last respects to the deceased leader.
Dhaka city mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka was alongside Bhuiyan’s son, daughter-in-law and close relatives during the former BNP leader’s last moments.
Bhuiyan will be buried at his family graveyard at Machhimpur’s Asadnagar in Narshingdi according to his last wishes, his youngest son Bhuiyan Nandito Nahiyan Shajan said.
Bhuiyan was admitted to Square Hospitals with breathlessness on July 7. The politician was on life-support system due to his inability to breathe normally.
The former local government minister was flown back to the country on an air ambulance from Singapore, where he went on May 31 for treatment.
The ailing BNP leader had undergone treatment at the Critical Care Unit (CCU) in Singapore National University Hospital.
His family members said Bhuiyan was given chemotherapy eight times to treat the lung cancer.
Seven of the eight chemotherapy sessions were administered at Singapore, including the last one, after which the politician has been unable to breathe normally.
He had been on artificial respiration for a week before flying back.
Bhuiyan was BNP’s secretary general for 11 years and served as the LGRD and cooperatives minister of the BNP-led government.
He was expelled from BNP on Sep 3, 2007, just before party chief Khaleda Zia was arrested during the emergency period for ‘siding with the ‘reformists’.
Bhuiyan was born on Mar 1, 1943 at Narshingdi. He completed his school education from Narshingdi’s Shibpur School and got his intermediate level education from Narshingdi College.
Bhuiyan completed his bachelors (honours) and masters degree in history from Dhaka University. He also secured bachelors of law (LLB) degree from Dhaka University.
He took to politics in his college days. He was a member of the then Communist Party’s student wing Chhatra Union.
In 1962, Bhuiyan was one of the chief coordinators East Chhatra Union in the anti-Ayub movement. In 1964 he was elected the organising secretary of the student organisation. Only two years later, he became the general secretary.
In the meantime, he was elected a member of the executive committee of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) in 1965.
Around the same time, after being inspired by Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, he became involved in the politics of National Awami Party (NAP).
He was an active freedom fighter in the 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. He also declared Narsinghdi as a ‘free zone’ and conducted liberation war activities from there.
The war over, Bhuiyan sowed the seed for the farmers’ movement of NAP later on, by forming the Krishak Shamiti (Farmer’s Association) at Narsinghdi.
Around 1976 – 1977, Bhuiyan along with a group of NAP members moved out of NAP and formed the United People’s Party (UPP).
In 1980, BNP’s de facto founder and former president Ziaur Rahman urged Bhuiyan to join the party and he did so, taking up the responsibility of the party’s farmers’ wing.
He became one of the three members of BNP’s liaison committee, which maintained communication with other parties during the period of anti-autocratic movement in 1981.
He was made the party’s joint secretary general in 1983
During BNP’s tenure in power from 1991-96, he served initially as the jute minister and then took office as the labour minister.
After their fall in 1996, the BNP led by Khaleda Zia made Bhuiyan the party’s secretary general.
He held office as the local government and rural development minister in BNP’s regime of 2001-2006.
In a notification letter on his expulsion, Khaleda said that amid the emergency and the ban on politics, Bhuiyan had held meetings with the so-called ‘reformists’, formed various personal opinions on party reforms and internal matters of the party, which he had then shared with the media without the approval of the council, standing committee and the chairperson.
BNP chief Begum Khaleda Zia claimed such actions were aimed by Mannan Bhuiyan at splitting the party and ran contrary to the discipline, constitution, interests and regulations of the party.
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