Staff Correspondent
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Thursday said that her party would join the first sitting of the first session of the ninth parliament and extend cooperation to the government as it wanted to play a constructive role as the opposition.
She demanded that the government should take immediate steps to stop attacks on her party men and to ensure punishment to the persons responsible for such violence.
Khaleda said shake-up in the party would start soon and that it would be carried out in every tier– from top to bottom.
‘The BNP has decided to join the parliament for the sake of democracy and the nation. We will attend the sessions and want to play a constructive role as the opposition and expect that the government will create an environment for that,’ Khaleda told a press briefing at her Gulshan office immediately after the party lawmakers elected her as the leader of the party’s parliamentary group.
‘The government must co-operate with the opposition to enable the latter to play its due role in the parliament. The ongoing killings and repression must be stopped and the persons responsible for such violence punished,’ she said.
Khaleda said the people had voted for BNP in the December 29 polls but the results were snatched through rigging and the persons responsible for protecting the rights of the people were now suing the people ‘to hide their own crimes’.
She said that after assuming office, the Awami League went on attacking the BNP activists, killing them, looting and grabbing their properties. ‘Till date, 17 of our activists have been killed and today another succumbed to his injuries. The halls of residence at Dhaka University and other universities have been occupied,’ she said.
‘We have seen the statements of the home minister and it makes it clear what course the government is taking,’ she said.
Khaleda said, ‘The government had promised to provide rice at Tk 10 a kilogram, green chilly at Tk 5 a kilogram, supply fertiliser free of cost and ensure job for one from every family. But they have deviated from their election pledges,’ she said.
The BNP chief accused the government of discriminating against the BNP and lamented that the oath taking ceremony of BNP lawmakers was not telecast live from the parliament Thursday.
She told a questioner that the BNP MPs join the first sitting of the first session of ninth parliament though the day was dubbed by BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain as a ‘black day’.
Khaleda said the party was yet get any proposal for the position of the deputy speaker.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
