PM’s tea party like ‘pleasure without conscience’: BNP

Dhaka, Feb 3 (UNB) – BNP on Sunday described Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ‘tea party’ at Ganobhaban as pleasure without conscience and said no democracy-loving party leader joined it.

“The tea party arrangement by a regretless government after a grand vote robbery reminds me a famous saying by Mahatma Gandhi ‘pleasure without conscience’. This pleasure is a social sin,” said BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

Speaking at a press conference at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, he also said the tea part by a ‘euphoric’ government formed through a ‘farcical’ election is tantamount to pleasure without conscience.

“No democracy-loving party and those who are in a democratic movement didn’t join the event of sin committed by the government which betrayed the nation and looted people’s votes. This is the victory of people,” Rizvi said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hosted the tea party at her official residence Ganobhaban on Saturday for the leaders of political parties who had joined dialogues with her before the 11th general election.

Leaders of all the political parties, except the Jatiya Oikyafront, including the BNP, and the Left Democratic Alliance (LDA), attended the tea party. Turning down the results of the December-30 election and bringing the allegation of vote robbery, Oikyafront and LDA demanded reelection. 

Rizvi said now there is no democracy in Bangladesh as the state is now under the grip of an individual and a party. “The people of Bangladesh have now become the slaves of the sate due to demolition of democracy.”

He also alleged that the country’s ‘most popular’ leader Khaleda Zia has been kept in jail while thousands of BNP leaders and activists have been arrested in ‘false’ cases only to protect the one-party rule.

He alleged that the government not only demonstrated a bizarre attitude but also mocked people by filing ‘fictitious’ cases against dead persons, paralysed patients and expatriates leaving in different countries.