Accusing Khaleda Zia of looking for newer pretexts to wage a fresh movement, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday urged the people of the country and her party leaders and workers to get united to stand against any evil power.
“The mass people and our party leaders and workers need to be united to stand against any kind of evil power…we’ll build a hunger- and poverty-free ‘Sonar Bangla’ in light with the spirit of the Liberation War,” she said.Hasina, also the president of the ruling Awami League, was addressing a mammoth public rally at the historic Suhrawardy Uddyan in the afternoon, marking the 7th March organised by the ruling party.
Chaired by Deputy Leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, the rally was addressed, among others, by Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, AL Advisory Council member Suranjit Sen Gupta, AL joint general secretaries Mahbub ul Alam Hanif, Dr Dipu Moni, Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.
Hasina alleged that the BNP chairperson is now looking for newer excuses to wage a fresh movement. “Now she (Khaleda) is supplicating those whom she had driven away before. I’ve seen in a picture that she (Khaleda) wearing a red saree is talking to Badu Kaka (Dr Badruddoza Chowdhury). I don’t know whether Badu Kaka went there with a bunch of Rajanigandha.”
The Prime Minister said that the character of the BNP-Jamaat has got exposed before people and they would not accept the killers anymore.
Referring to the ‘over enthusiasm’ of some foreign diplomats in Dhaka over Bangladesh’s political issues, she said there are some ambassadors who meet the BNP leader every week or after every 15 days and lodge complaints against Awami League.
In this connection, Hasina said that Awami League never supplicates anyone as the party believes in people and in their empowerment. The Prime Minister said that her party has restored the constitutional and voting rights of the common people. “The constitution was earlier dissected by Ziaur Rahman through grabbing power illegally.”
Shrugging off BNP-Jamaat’s help seeking from others, Hasina warned that no one would be allowed to play ‘ducks and drakes’ with the fate of the country’s people anymore. “Many plots had been hatched, but those failed. The people of Bangladesh would stand on their own feet not depending on others,” she asserted.
Highlighting various aspects of the historic 7th March speech of the Father of the Nation, Hasina said that the country would be built in light with the directives of the speech of Bangabandhu on March 7 and then January 10.
She also expressed her firm resolve to turn Bangladesh into a prosperous middle-income one by 2021 and a developed one by 2041 alongside turning it into a peaceful country in South Asia.
Referring to the BNP chairperson’s speech in Manikganj that she would save the country for which she needed blood and bodies. “I don’t know how much blood and how many corpses would be required to quench her (Khaleda’s) thrust.”
Extending her heartfelt thanks to the people of Bangladesh for not responding to the so-called movements waged by the BNP-Jamaat to foil the January 5 election, Hasina said that it is their character to try to save the war criminals and engage in killings.
Mentioning that BNP had known well that people would not cast their votes for such corrupts like them, the AL chief alleged that the BNP men joining hands with Jamaat men killed, burned people to death hurling petrol bombs in buses, trains, uprooting fishplates from railway tracks, killed some 17 policemen, two army personnel, two BGB men, burned to death some 55 drivers and helpers, burned to death 155 people, logged thousands of trees across the country even set fire to 583 schools just before the last national election.
“The BNP chairperson doesn’t like education as she herself had failed in her exams. So, she wants our children to fail in their exams,” Hasina added.
The Prime Minister also highlighted various achievements of her immediate past and present governments in different fields saying that Bangladesh is now a role model of development as it has proved its mettle.
“Due to the success of the last five years, we’ve been able to free the country from the black list of militancy, terrorism and money laundering,” she said. – UNB
