Govt did not come to power with people’s vote: Khaleda

She cites Jalil’s admissions as evidence of rigging
Opposition leader Khaleda Zia deplored that the present government is not paying attention to public welfare nor fulfilling its pre-election pledges as Awami League “didn’t come to power with people’s vote but through rigging”.
To underpin her observations she said that a former general secretary of the ruling party divulged that Awami League came to power ‘through entente and rigging’, which her party has complained repeatedly after the December 29 general election.
The BNP chairperson and ex-PM cautioned the government that her party doesn’t want to launch movement now but, if the government wants to implement agreements against the country’s interest, her party would launch movement and build up resistance to halt the government’s move.
She further said BNP would remain prepared for throwing programmes and launching movement for protecting the country’s interests.
“Remain ready to join the BNP movement,” Khaleda told her audience during her Sirajganj trip on a relief mission.
The BNP chairperson and leader of the opposition made the remarks and warnings while distributing relief materials to poor men, women and children who could not celebrate Eid-ul-fitr for pangs of poverty and passing days in hardship due to river erosion at Hard Point of Jamuna town-protection embankment.
The programme eventually turned into a big public gathering as she went on handing out rice, sugar, vermicelli, saris and lungis to the destitute. Addressing the gathering, she said the present government, instead of implementing election pledges, is busy implementing its “commitments given to foreign powers” before the polls.
In this regard, she criticized government move to sign various “anti-national” agreements besides such other activities. She cited the army pullout from Chittagong Hill Tracts. As a result, she feared, the region will be out of hand of Bangladesh.
Khaleda further alleged that the government wants to give corridor to India in the name of Asian Highway. She said BNP also wants Bangladesh to link with the Asian Highway, but “not sacrificing the country’s interests”.
The former Prime Minister criticized this government’s move towards forming taskforce in a bid to “hand over country’s resources to foreign powers”.
Terming the past Fakhruddin caretaker government as government of Awami League, she said the present government is following “the blueprint of Fakhruddin’s regime, which also made commitments to the foreign powers against national interests”.
“The Fakhruddin regime wanted to depoliticize the country, but they failed as people did not accept it.”
About the new parliament, the BNP chief deplored that the ruling party is turning the parliament “ineffective” sans opposition as she said the ruling party did not give place for sitting to the opposition in the House.
“They do not want democracy and multiparty democracy but conspiring to establish one-party Baksal rule in the country to cling to power,” she told the crowd of relief-seekers and commoners. But, she cautioned, the people had never accepted one-party rule and would never ever again accept it in the future, too.
“The ruling party is doing whatever necessary to relegate Bangladesh to a dysfunctional state,” the ex-PM said on a serious note of criticism of her political foes. She said the government has been partisan everywhere and mentioned that efficient officers at the Secretariat are being made OSD while “pro-Awami League inept government officials are being awarded with promotions twice and thrice”.
As a result, no w ork is going on in the country, she lamented. Referring to what she called misrule and misdeeds of the last caretaker government, she said all sections of people, including politicians and businessmen, were repressed by the Fakhruddin government, which also handed the country massive losses.
She said during the Fakhruddin regime, the prices of rice were Tk 40 per kg and many people remained unfed, some committed suicide and some were forced to sell their children for want of food.
The BNP chief said the Awami League government had not implemented a single commitment in the last nine months as the party had pledged to feed people with rice at Tk 10 per kg and green chilies at Tk 5 kg besides free distribution of fertilizer.
“Rather ruling-party activists remained busy looting, grabbing land, home and shop, violating the chastity of mothers and sisters across the country,” she said. She claimed prices of essential items have gone out of reach of people which crossed the price indices of Fakhruddin times. She told the gathering that BNP always remained beside the people, particularly poor and distressed people, still remained beside them and would remain in the future also.
Referring to a sad episode of many poor people of Sirajganj, particularly of char areas, having failed to celebrate Eid-ul-fitr, she said her party, while in power, had made lump allocations during eid times. But this government did not make any lump allocation to poor people. She said the Awami League is frequently speaking about secularism “but the party men are grabbing property, houses and lands of Hindu community and unleashed repression them”.
Some destitute women also spoke at the meeting, narrating their miseries as they could not celebrate the Eid. Rather they had no food to eat on the eid day and could not buy their children eid dresses. Sirajganj district BNP convenor Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku and local MP Rumana Mahmud also spoke at the public gathering.

Courtesy of UNB, Sirajganj