Brushing aside the opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s demand for restoring the caretaker government system, the leader of the House, Sheikh Hasina Saturday suggested her counterpart to keep her trust on people.
“The general elections will be held in the country in a similar way to those in other countries having parliamentary democracy. Through the election, that party will assume office, which the people will vote for,” she told the parliament.
Taking part in the general discussion on the proposed budget, the prime minister called upon the opposition leader to move forward at least once, by keeping faith on voters for the sake of democracy.
“For the sake of our country’s progress, continuation of democratic process is a must. We all have to keep trust on the people’s mandate,” she said, and requested the opposition to keep trust on people, shunning the politics of destruction.
In her almost two-hour-long address, Sheikh Hasina bitterly criticised the opposition leaders for her write-up in The Washington Times.
“Khaleda Zia had written against Bangladesh and me… I know she could write against me because her son had attempted to kill me in 2004 through grenade attack. But what is the countrymen’s fault?” she posed a question, adding that the written the article was written out of political vengeance.
Responding Khaleda’s denial of writing in Washington Time, Hasina told her political counterpart, “You cannot deny it. At the end of the article, your name and designation was mentioned. That the article was written by the former Prime Minister and current leader of the opposition.”
“If she (Khaleda) didn’t write the article, then who wrote it?” Hasinaraised a question.
The Leader of the House claimed that USA was supposed to withdrawthe GSP facilities in 2007, but the incumbent government retained the facilities.
Expressing her concern over assuming state power by third force, the Prime Minister said, “those who are want to assume office as third force are the masterminds of ‘minus-two’ formula. Will they will leave the office after getting the power?”
She called upon the countrymen to remain vigilant so that any masterminds of the minus-two formula would not get any chance to assume state power.
Supporting Awami League’s logic of demanding caretaker system, Hasina said, her party raised voce infavour of the caretaker government afterthe BNP government had held elections of vote-rigging like Magura, Mirpur and Dhaka-10.
The PM claimed that some 5654 elections, including by-polls, were held under the incumbent government and all the elections were held in a free and credible state.
Citing an example of fair and credible elections in the four city corporation, she said: “Our candidates faced defeats there, despite huge development activities carried out by the outgoing mayors,” she said.
The premier criticised the opposition leader for raising questions over the city corporations after 11 days and posed a question, “Did the BNP supported candidates won through rigging?” “Will we cancel those elections and hold elections again?” she asked with a smiling face.
Talking about the budget, the Prime Minister said her government proposed the budget targeting poverty alleviationand expressed her confidence on implementing it.
In her address, the PM turned down the World Bank’s allegationsof corruption in the Padma Bridge project, saying that no corruption took place in this project.
“We will build Padma Bridge with our own fund,” she said. “The government won't allow anyone to play game with the fate of the people of the southern region over who would become the MD of a bank or not.”
“I may shed blood like my father. I want to die with my head high. I will not bow down to anyone’s pressure,” she said.