Headline-chasing interim head: Jethmalani on Yunus' NE remark

NEW DELHI: Muhammad Yunus's reference to the northeastern states without recognising them as a part of India in his farewell address as the chief adviser of Bangladesh's interim govt drew a sharp takedown from BJP functionary Mahesh Jethmalani who said he has presided over a country that looks increasingly "unmoored".

"Bangladesh deserves serious statecraft. Instead, it has got a headline-chasing interim figure who treats India as a prop. The Soros-lackey chameleon called Md Yunus," the senior advocate said, who slammed his telivised address to the nation on Monday as another gratuitous sermon on India.




The swearing-in of BNP chairman Tarique Rahman as Bangladesh's PM on Tuesday marked the end of the Yunus-headed interim govt, which took charge following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina govt after violent protests in 2024.

"The headline-chasing head sprinkled his televised address with the familiar sovereignty/dignity theatrics and a sly reference to India's north-east and seven sisters of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura - without calling them part of India," Jethmalani said. "When you can't govern, you grandstand. When you can't stabilise your own country, you try to manufacture an external villain - preferably the neighbour that actually functions."

Yunus, he said, wasn't elected and instead instigated a volatile interim perch and has since presided over a Bangladesh that looks increasingly unmoored. He speaks as if he is Bangladesh's permanent conscience and the irony is almost comic, Jethmalani said.

"All he will be remembered for is a hubris that is beyond redemption whose ideological shape-shifting is the tell. One day he behaves like a global icon; the next he is the local strongman-in-waiting, feeding the same old insinuations for applause. That is what happens when your politics is held together by networks and patronage, not mandate and performance," he said.
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