Opposition BNP’s senior lawmaker Moudud Ahmed and ruling Awami League’s prominent politician Tofael Ahmed locked horns over a range of issues including Tarique Rahman and caretaker government in the Jatiya Sangsad on Monday. Taking part in the discussion on the supplementary budget, Moudud Ahmed urged the ruling party men to refrain from making any indecent remark on party’s senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman saying “if you do so, you will be given an appropriate rebuttal.”
“Nothing will go unchallenged,” Moudud Ahmed threatened the treasury bench members in an apparent reference to their remarks on Tarique Rahman and said: “You do not have to arrest Tarique Rahman. When time comes, he will come back to the country.”
Ahmed, however, skipped the Tarique Rahman issue but told the opposition BNP in explicit terms that it would never be able to realize its demand for a non-party and neutral caretaker government through movement and street agitations.
He said the next polls would be held as per the constitutional provisions of the country in line with the polls under all other parliamentary democracies in the world and urged the opposition party to give up what he termed “its politics of opportunity” and take a principled stand.
Moudud Ahmed told the House that there is no practice of democracy in the country. “All we have is a controlled democracy,” he said adding: “Awami League established BKSAL after the independence. It still has the mindset for one-party rule. How will it establish democracy in the country?”
He said the four and a half-year rule of the present government would be marked as a “black chapter” in nation’s history with unbridled corruption in share market, quick rental, Destiny, Hallmark and Padma Bridge project and failure in signing agreement for Teesta Water sharing and Tipaimukh Embankment.
The BNP leader said that false cases have been filed against as many as 300,000 leaders and workers of his party while 15,000 of them are now in jails. “Is this an example of good governance and rule of law as often claimed by the ruling party people,” he wanted to know from the chair.
Moudud Ahmed said he himself was arrested by the present government soon after his return from London and was in jail for few days. He further said that 22 cases were filed against his party’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir who was taken to jail as many as five times.
The senior BNP lawmaker launched a broadside against the government for its failure to punish the killers of journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Runi, arresting Amar Desh Editor Mahmudur Rahman and closing down Amar Desh and Diganta and Islamic TV.
In a rebuttal to Moudud Ahmed, Tofael Ahmed taking part in the same discussion on the supplementary budget, told the House that BKSAL was never a one-party rule. He said it was a “national party” comprising all prominent organizations and individuals of the country.
The Awami League leader said that the BNP government had filed 39 cases not only against him but also against his wife and daughter. He said he too suffered imprisonment during the BNP government and along with him 72,000 leaders and workers of Awami League were charged with false cases.
-With The Independent input
