BNP-Jamaat clique to destroy country if returns to power: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday said the BNP-Jamaat clique will just destroy the country with their unbridled looting and corruption if they return to power as they did in the past.

“… they’ll just eat up the country through their looting if they get back to power…there’ll be no change in people’s fate,” she said.

The Prime Minister said this when leaders and activists of Swechhasebak League met her on the occasion of the founding anniversary of their organisation at her official residence Ganobhaban.

She said Khaleda Zia could not restrain herself from embezzling even orphans’ money. “How they’ll give anything to people returning to power…they won’t be able to give anything to people, they’ll just engage themselves in looting and corruption.”

Sheikh Hasina, also the President of the ruling Awami League, mentioned that the BNP chief is now in jail for embezzlement of orphans’ money. “We didn’t put her in jail for political reason. Had we wanted to do that we could have done that in 2013, 2014 and 2013.”

She said the people of the country have no trust and faith in the BNP-Jamaat clique. “This has been proved,” she said.

Talking about the unabated corruption and money laundering during the BNP-Jamaat regime, the Prime Minister said these have been proved in the USA, too.

She also said Awami League brought back the confidence of people in government after its return to power through the 2008 election.

“If anyone does politics for personal gains that politics cannot give anything to the country, and that person takes everything for himself or herself…history never pardons such person,” Hasina said.

The Prime Minister also said if the politics is just in the interest and welfare of people, then the politicians can give something to the country. “And we’re doing that.”

She said the main aim of the Awami League is to build the fate of people, not its own. “I’m not there in politics to make own fortune… I just want one thing—to change the fate of people.”

Hasina said the government has already ensured food security in the country and want to make it a poverty-free one. “We’re implementing programmes to that end.”

She mentioned her government wants to make Bangladesh a poverty- and hunger-free country one as dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Sheikh Hasina called upon the leaders and workers of Swechhasebak League to highlight the successes and achievements of her government and seek their votes for ‘Boat’ in the next election.

She said leaders and workers of Swechhasebak League will have to make the organisation stronger and more disciplined and project her government‘s successes achieved over the last nine and a half years.

Taking a dig at BNP, she accused the party of harbouring terrorism, militancy, killing, destructive acts and committing unbridled corruption during its 2001-2006 rule.

Hasina said the BNP leaders and workers amassed so much money through which it had purchased an FBI agent of the US to kidnap and kill her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy there.

One of the BNP leaders was punished for making such a plot, while the names of BNP chairperson’s adviser Mahmudur Rahman and pro-BNP intellectual Shafiq Rehman came out in the investigation of the FBI, the PM added.

About the country’s development, Hasina said a new perspective plan for the next 2021-2041 term is also being formulated to establish Bangladesh as a developed and prosperous country.

She said the country has witnessed massive development due to various initiatives of her government and added that country’s first satellite Bangabandhu-1 has been launched into the space.

Earlier, senior leaders of Swechhasebak League greeted the Prime Minister by presenting her bouquets on the occasion of its founding anniversary.

source:UNB