Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the people to vote Awami League to power for a second consecutive term for continuing the development projects of her government.
She made the call on Friday at a rally organised by Awami League’s Dhaka metropolitan unit at Suhrawardy Udyan.
“I ask for your votes for boat one more time, so the progress continues and I can complete the unfinished works,” Hasina, who heads the Awami League, said in reference to her party’s electoral symbol.
She remembered losing most of the family members including her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on Aug 15, 1975 in a bloody military putsch.
“I lost my family. I have nothing else to ask for. Like my father, I have only one goal – (to have a) hunger and poverty-free Bangladesh, for which I need everyone’s help.”
She also mentioned her commitment to establish the people’s rights, even if it means she will have to sacrifice her own life, just as her father did.
The Awami League always kept its promises, she said. “We ensured the right to food for the people after we were elected. We want to create a militancy, terrorism and poverty- free Bangladesh.”
But the country was not safe in hands of the BNP, now the main opposition, she reminded her audience. “They are killing people in the name of movement demanding the caretaker government.”
“This is their nature – backing the murders and murderers.”
She also portrayed the development carried out by the incumbent government.
Recalling the massive support to the Awami League in the last general election, Hasina told thousands of party leaders and activists at the rally, “Your assistance will be always remembered.”
The rally, organised to mark the National Mourning Day which passed on Aug 15, kicked off at 3:30pm in the southern part of the Suhrawardy Udyan. Thousands of leaders and activists of the ruling party and its affiliate organisations thronged the area with banners and posters since noon.
Senior Awami League leaders addressed the gathering before the motorcade carrying Hasina reached the rally site at 5pm. She started her speech at 5:40pm.
During her half-hour long address, Hasina said Gen Ziaur Rahman, the founder of BNP and a late President, had ‘rewarded’ the killers of Bangabandhu.
“He had put them in Parliament. And now the present government is cleaning the stains by trying those killers.”
“The war crimes trials had begun after the people elected Awami League. And now they are getting the verdicts of those trials.”
Where the whole nation wants the war criminals be tried, the Leader of the Opposition, Khaleda Zia, was trying to save them, Hasina added.
Metropolitan unit Acting President MA Aziz presided over the rally where Awami League Presidium members Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, Amir Hossain Amu, Mohammad Nasim, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Mahbub-ul Alam Hanif, Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Fazle Noor Tapash also, among others, spoke.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has brushed aside BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s warnings of a movement to topple government.
“The BNP Chairperson said the winds from her campaign will blow the hair off my head. My hair doesn’t show because I keep my head covered. I do not wear a wig. What I have is all real.”
The comments by the political behemoths began when Hasina had said on Aug 18 that she would not budge away from the Constitution, not even by a hair’s breadth, to dismiss the opposition’s demand for election under a neutral government.
Khaleda fought back to say on Aug 20, “The winds of our campaign will blow your hair away. It will leave you without direction. All your hair will disappear and you will be left to flight for your very existence.”
Hasina countered her arch political rival’s claim in the rally on Friday and said, “She who is a complete phony should fear being blown off, I have nothing to fear.” The motorcade carrying Hasina reached the rally site at 5pm. – bdnews24.com
