Sticking to her guns, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said there is no scope of scrapping the election schedule for the 10th parliamentary
polls. Hasina, also President of the ruling Awami League, said this while talking to a select group of journalists on Thursday on her way
to a two-day election campaign in Faridpur, Gopalganj and Munshiganj.
Responding to a question about opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s call that there is still time for the next election, the Prime Minister
said: “Yes, there’s time, but for the 11th election, not for the 10th general election.” “The train has already left the station, so she
(Khaleda) will have to wait for the next train,” she said, adding that half of the election has already been completed. Hasina said that
the dialogue between the two parties (AL-BNP) will continue and if there is any compromise then the government would consider an early
election (11th parliamentary polls). Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her government has not done anything so bad for which the BNP
chief could kill people. She said the government would not leave any stone unturned to stop the ongoing ‘opposition-sponsored’ anarchy and
destructive activities across the country. “We’ll get tough as much as necessary to stop these…it’s our duty to save the lives and
property of people… we didn’t do anything so bad for which she (Khaleda Zia) could kill people this way,” Hasina told the
journalists. “We’ve many instances of unopposed wins in our political history,” the AL chief said when her attention was drawn to
the opposition allegation that the election where 154 candidates already won unopposed has no constitutional basis. “There’s no legal
and constitutional problem in such unopposed wins,” she said. Hasina said if the government had wanted to show that each constituency would
have to go for election, then it could be done. “We could set our own candidates in each constituency, then there should be elections in 300
seats and that was not a problem for us.” “We had waited till the last minute for the opposition’s participation in the (January 5)
election,” she said. “But, the opposition didn’t choose the path of election, rather opted for the path of killing people.” Alleging
that the opposition movement is ‘just aimed gaining personal interest’, the Awami League chief said that is why the opposition
leaders declared their movement as a war against people. She further said: “The opposition BNP always wanted to play a dirty game with the
dead body. They (BNP) always think something will happen when there will be dead bodies, but I don’t know what will happen.” Never in
the country’s history such a huge number of people was killed in arson attacks, the AL president said. Hasina alleged that all activities
of the BNP were to save the war criminals. “We’ve started the trial of the war criminals; they (BNP) want to save the war criminals and
that’s why they’re killing people,” she said, adding that “what the Jamaat had committed in 1971, the BNP is doing now.” Voicing her
firm determination to implement the verdicts against the war criminals, she said the government will obviously execute those to
free the country from stigma. The premier came down heavily on environmentalists for their silence when the opposition activists were
cutting down thousands of trees across the country in the name of movement. She said: “I feel astonished when I see the environment
lovers remain silent on this issue. Don’t they (environmentalists) feel this will destroy the country’s environment?” – UNB
