Leader of the opposition and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson KhaledaZia, on Saturday, urged the people of the country to make preparations for an all-out movement against the present government, saying that a “suffocating situation” is now prevailing in the country. The main objectives of the movement would be to restore the caretaker government system, which has been unilaterally scrapped by the present government, the former premier said in a message, marking the 35th founding anniversary of the party.
“The independence of the country is at stake now. Through various anti-state agreements, the government is engaged in dumping the national interest. The law and order situation is at its worst. The condition of the common people is miserable because of the crises in power, gas and water, and due to the abnormal hike in prices of essentials,” Khaleda pointed out.
In such a situation, the BNP cannot remain idle, she stated, and added that is why the party was organising athe rights of the people and to protect the sovereignty of the country.
Khaleda said due to the misrule of the present government, a reign of terror has been established in the country where massacres, secret killings, forced disappearances, extortion, corruption and oppression have become regular phenomena.
“The common people are not getting justice, as the freedom of the judiciary has been marred through reckless politicisation of the judiciary,” she said, adding that the civil administration was also
crippled.
Recalling the role of the BNP in the past, she said that the party, established by Shaheed president Ziaur Rahman, has played a crucial role in restoring pluralistic democracy in the country after abolishing the one-party BAKSAL rule introduced by the Awami League (AL).
“The party also played a pivotal role in restoring democracy in the country through its movement against the nine-year-long autocratic rule. To institutionalise democracy in the country, the BNP introduced a system of parliamentary government by amending the Constitution in 1991,” she said. Khaleda said the people of the country voted her party to power a number of times, because of the robust role played by it in the country’s development and in protecting democracy.
Meanwhile, the BNP’s acting secretary-general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, has accused the Awami League of extending patronage to extremism in the country, saying it furthers its
narrow political interests, by doing so.
“Militant attacks at Ramna Batamul and Jessore Udichi programme and on the central office of the Communist Party were launched during the previous tenure of the Awami League. The incidents indicate that the Awami League nurtures extremism in the country, to further its petty political interests,” Alamgir claimed.
Alamgir, who is also the opposition spokesperson, was addressing a programme marking the 35th founding anniversary of the BNP, at the Engineers’ Institute of Bangladesh, on Saturday afternoon.
Earlier, on Friday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had said at a public meeting in the capital that the country will be turned into a militant state if the BNP-Jamaat comes to power in the next polls.
Terming the Premier’s speech indecorous, discourteous and non-political, Alamgir has urged Sheikh Hasina, who is also the president of the ruling Awami League, to refrain from making such kind of speeches.
While addressing a discussion meeting at Harvard University in the US, Sajeeb Wajed Joy, the elder son of Premier Sheikh Hasina, had said that at least 35 per cent of the people in the army staff of Bangladesh are militant.
Alamgir assailed Sajeeb Wajed Joy, who is also the information and technology affairs adviser to the Premier, for such a statement, saying that his party, the BNP, as well as the people of the country, do not believe in militancy or any communal riot.
The government is projecting Bangladesh as a militant state abroad, by nabbing a handful of people for their alleged involvement with the newly formed militant organisation Ansarullah Bangla Team, he alleged.
“These efforts are nothing but just an evil attempt to turn the country into a militant state,” he alleged.
Alamgir said the country’s judiciary, administration, Parliament and business have been made partisan. All the democratic institutions of the country and its economy have also been smashed by the government, he alleged.
The country’s Constitution has also been hacked into several pieces by the government, he claimed. It has enacted some controversial provisions which will never be amended, despite gaining two-third majority in Parliament, he said.
The government has shoved the country into a deep crisis, by annulling the non-party caretaker government (CG) provision in the charter, he added.
“We never allow the government to hold the next general elections under its own management. We will organise an intensive movement, forcing it to meet our CG demand,” he warned.
BNP leaders RA Ghani, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Moudud Ahmed, Rafiqul Islam Mia, Mirza Abbas, Abdul Moeen Khan and others spoke at the function. Alamgir was in the chair.
-With The Independent input
