BNP senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman has called upon its leaders and activists to get ready for a strong movement to force the government to restore the caretaker government system.“At this moment, it’s the prime task to establish a neutral non-party government before the polls. There’s no alternative to caretaker government for holding a free, fair and transparent election. So we should focus more on ensuring a neutral election than being election oriented,” he told an iftar party in London on Wednesday.
The BNP leader also urged the patriots both at home and abroad to play their role from their respective positions in reinstating the non-party caretaker government system.
BNP’s UK chapter arranged the iftar party at a five-star hotel in London.
It was the second public meeting addressed by the BNP chief in his nearly five years stay in the UK.
In his nearly 45-minute speech, Tarique mainly presented a framework and shared his plans for development of future Bangladesh.
He gave a detailed plan for development of seven important sectors, including agriculture, education, tourism, ICT, power, and industry for taking the country forward.
Except the caretaker government issue, the BNP leader hardly talked about the politics and criticise the government and the ruling party.
Describing his future development plans, he said, “We’ll have to look forward leaving the attitude of looking at the past. Building a prosperous Bangladesh is not impossible if we go ahead with proper plans and specific goals.”
Tarique, also the eldest son of opposition leader Khaleda Zia, stressed the need for bringing a change in the current parochial political culture to take the country forward. “Our future will not brighten if we confine ourselves to traditional system of governance. We should appreciate the modernity and have to accept the novelty.”
The BNP senior vice chairman emphasised the need for increasing the utility of agricultural subsidy and gave his opinion in favour of the reforming the process of distribution and import of seeds, fertilisers and pesticides.
“A market system has to be developed where sales prices must be fixed keeping a 10-15 percent profit margin from the production price. It’s needed to from an agriculture-friendly commission to fix the prices.”
He also advocated for improving the living standard of the farmers and enhancing the effectiveness of Krishi Bank to reach its services to the doorsteps of the farmers.
Tarique also thinks there should be a change in the existing examination system in education sector with a view to encouraging the creativity.
He also underscored need for the expansion of technical education to make the institutional education time-worthy and make people aware about the practical life.
Tarique also highlighted his plan to frame an investment-friendly policy keeping the ideas of more industries more exports in the fore.
“It’s possible to raise the earnings in the readymade garment (RMG) sector to 45 billion dollars from the existing 22 billion dollars by diversifying products with specific plans,” he said.
Emphasising the outsourcing of IT-related works, Tarique revealed his plan to set up some IT parks in the country. “In the IT parks, local and multinational companies will develop hardware and software apart from conducting research.”
The BNP leader believed that the remittance inflow can be increased to 20 billion dollars in the next five years from existing 14 billion dollars by creating skilled manpower.
Tarique, who has been living in London since 2008, faces over a dozen of criminal cases including money laundering.
On September 11, 2008, eight days after his release from jail on bail, Tarique Rahman left for London for treatment relinquishing his party portfolio (senior joint secretary general of BNP), the day her mother, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, was freed from detention during the military-backed caretaker government.
Tarique, arrested on March 7, 2007, was freed from jail on bail on September 3, 2008.
However, in December 2009 Tarique was made the party senior vice-chairman with a clear mandate to lead the BNP in the absence of his mother.
On May 26, a Dhaka court issued a warrant for the arrest of Tarique in a money-laundering case and asked the government to take necessary steps to bring him back with the help of Interpol, a week after he addressed a meeting in London and urged the Bangladeshi expatriates to create pressure on the government to reinstate the caretaker government. – UNB
