BNP Standing Committee Member Moudud Ahmed on Friday said they would join the forthcoming budget session of the 9th parliament scheduled to begin on June 3.
“We are not responding to the call of the government rather it is our own interest that has driven us to join the parliament,” he said.
“But how many days we will be there depends upon the government’s attitude towards the opposition,” Moudud said at a discussion organised by Swadhinata Forum at the Jatiya Press Club.
“On the one hand you (government) are inviting us to join the parliament but on the other hand you are arresting opposition leaders,” he said: “It cannot go on like this.”
“Dialogue and politics of confrontation cannot go together,” he observed.
The former law minister slated the government for indulging self-contradictory statements.
The government called for dialogue under the pressure of the UN representative and foreign pressure.
“Prime minister said they have people’s support. If you do have people’s support then why are you scared of caretaker government administration?” he posed a question.
The BNP lawmakers must join the House by mid-June as they can at best skip six more working days of the budget session or else lose their membership for boycotting the session for 90 consecutive days in line with the constitution.
Moudud alleged that the ruling party turned the parliament dysfunctional in the last four and a half years. “We were barred from speaking in favour of people of the country.”
Forty-one lawmakers – 38 from the BNP, two from Jamaat-e-Islami and one from the Bangladesh Jatiya Party – have been staying away from the House for 83 consecutive days alleging hostile attitude from the treasury bench.
Of the BNP lawmakers, alleged war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, are now in jail while indisposed Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad are out of obligation to join parliament by the middle of June.
The parliament officials say, two more regular sessions may take place before the current parliament is dissolved ahead of the 10th general elections either in December this year or January next year.
The parliament records show that the Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia attended only eight out of the total 370 working days in 17 sessions of the Awami League-led parliament.
Her party legislators attended the House for only 52 days.
The Awami League as opposition in the BNP-led fifth parliament skipped 135 out of the total 400 sittings.
In the 7th parliament, the then opposition BNP boycotted 163 out of the 382 working days.
The Awami League as the main opposition boycotted 223 out of the total 373 working days in the BNP-led 8th parliament.