Abul Mansur Ahmed

Abul Mansur Ahmad (Bengali: আবুল মনসুর আহমদ; 3 September 1898 – 18 March 1979), born Ahmad Ali Farazi (Bengali: আহমদ আলী ফরাজী), was a Bangladeshi politician, writer, and journalist. Ahmad began as an Indian National Congress worker in Bengal. He participated in the Khilafat Movement in his early youth. A strong advocate of peasant rights, disappointed by the Congress's negligence to Muslim peasants, like many other Muslim Congress workers of Bengal, he left the Congress and founded the Praja Samity (later the Krishak-Praja Samity), a peasant welfare organisation and its political arm the Krishak-Praja Party (KPP). He became a major organiser of the KPP in the greater Mymensingh district region. As the KPP president A K Fazlul Huq took office as the first prime minister of Bengal, after the 1937 provincial elections, Ahmad became one of his closest confidantes. Disheartened by KPP's failure in the government, he inclined towards the thriving Muslim League and the Pakistan Movement in the early 1940s. He realised that Pakistan is inevitable and urged the KPP workers to join the Muslim League, fearing a feudal elite and clergy domination in its leadership. Ahmad was dismayed by the Muslim League government in East Pakistan. He joined the Awami Muslim League (later the Awami League), a dissident offshoot of the Muslim League. He proposed the Jukta Front coalition for the 1954 provincial elections and also authored its 21-points election manifesto. The Jukta Front won a landslide victory in the election and he was elected to the legislative assembly. He was a major critic of the Pakistan Constitution assembly debate in 1956. He served as the Minister of Commerce and Industry in the Suhrawardy cabinet of the central Government of Pakistan, also occasionally serving as the acting prime minister.