Accept president’s decision on EC reconstitution: PM [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Accept president’s decision on EC reconstitution: PM

Local December 18, 2016

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Saturday asked the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to accept the decision to be made by the president on the reconstitution of the Election Commission.
‘You are going to meet the president…Accept the suggestions the president makes,’ Hasina said while addressing a discussion at Krishibid Institution.
She said that the president would make a decision in consultation with all political parties.
Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, came up with the call just a day before a BNP delegation led by its chairperson Khaleda Zia was scheduled for today to sit for talks with president Abdul Hamid on the reconstitution of the commission.
She called on the people to cast their vote for the Awami League to avert recurrence of ‘1971-like situation.’
‘If the Awami League-led alliance is voted to power again, the pace of ongoing development activities will continue or a 71-like situation would arise if the BNP-Jamaat alliance assumes power,’ she said, adding that her party believed in the people and hoped that the people would not frustrate them.
Hinting at the BNP, the prime minister said that why the people would cast votes for the party which had been defeated in the movement and elections.
She said that BNP dreamt of assuming office with the help of a foreign quarter.
‘None would help them assuming office,’ she said.
AL organised the programme marking the 46th Victory Day.
Referring to the February 15, 1996 parliamentary polls, Hasina said that BNP assumed office through election manipulation.
‘She [Khaleda] became the prime minister but was compelled to leave the office amid the movement of the people…How do they cry for impartial polls and democracy,’ Hasina said.
She called on the people to uphold the dignity of the red-green flag, achieved through the sacrifice of millions of people and honour of thousands of women.
Hasina said that country’s history had been distorted for 21 years following the assassination of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
‘None will be given an opportunity to distort the country’s history anymore,’ she said, adding that the nation got rid of distortion of the history after AL assumed office in 1996.
She doubted the patriotism of the usurpers, who also got recognition.
‘The usurpers never wanted the country’s development rather they wanted to erase the history of the Liberation War…I have a doubt if they believe in country’s War of Independence, as they established the anti-liberation elements in this country and awarded the national flag to their vehicles,’ she said.
Hasina said that her party would have assumed office in 2001 had she compromised the country’s interest.
‘The United States proposed me for signing a contract to sell gas to a US company but I did not agree saying that we could sell gas if there was any surplus keeping a reserve for 50 years…As a result, we could not assume office,’ she said.
Portraying the pre-election scenario of 2001, Hasina said that Justice Latifur Rahman was the head of the caretaker government and former US president Jimmy Carter made a visit to Bangladesh.
Presidents and secretaries of both the AL and BNP were invited to a meeting at the residence of Latifur Rahman.
‘Former AL general secretary late Zillur Rahman and I represented AL while Khaleda Zia and late Mannan Bhuiyan attended the meeting,’ she said.
The proposal was flouted there, she said, adding that BNP assumed office as they agreed to the proposal.
Senior AL leaders, including Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Matia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, among others, also spoke at the programme.