Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the people of the country will not respond to the call of a “repressor and killer” like BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia any more.
“Nobody will respond to the call of a repressor and killer like her,” she said in an apparent counter of Khaleda’s call for casting votes for her party-backed candidates in the upcoming Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation polls.
“The way she had devastated public life, will people respond to her call anymore? The country’s people did not like her destructive activities,” she said referring to the recent activities during the BNP-Jamaat’s hartal and blockade programmes, reports the UNB.
Speaking at a press conference at her official residence Ganabhaban to brief about her recent Indonesia tour, Hasina questioned the logic to cast votes in favour of the BNP-backed mayoral and councilor candidates in the city polls.
“The way Khaleda Zia and her cadres burned people, the way she ordered doing so, who will cast their votes for them?”
The Prime Minister mentioned that anyone who has the sense of humanity and conscience will never cast hi or her votes for BNP or Jamaat or the 20-party alliance.
“Only those who don’t have humanity and conscience could be there beside BNP and Jamaat,” she added.
Terming Khaleda Zia slipshod, the Awami League chief said how she is now seeking votes in favour of BNP-backed Mayor candidate for Dhaka North, whose symbol is ‘Bus’, after burning thousands of buses during the countrywide blockade and hartal.
“Doesn’t she [Khaleda] have any shame? How is she seeking votes for the Bus symbol, which she burned recently,” she questioned.
Hasina also said that the people of the country are not fools at all. “She [Khaleda] though that the people of the country are fools, and they will cast their votes in favour of BNP-backed candidates as she asking for.”
Hasina questioned further is it unique in the world the way Khaleda Zia burned people and vehicles? “I don’t know anybody saw such movement in the world history…it never happened in any country,” she said.
She termed it as a ‘heinous act’ the way she burned people to death alive. “The way she burned people to death, how she is now seeking votes,” she added.
The Prime Minister recalled the horrible days during the blockade and hartal time. “What a hell-like situation she (Khaleda) created at that time in the name of blockade and hartal.”
She also questioned about the existence of the transport blockade at present. “I don’t know whether the blockade is continuing or not,” she said.
Hasina also questioned about the maturity of Khaleda Zia’s leadership. “What type of leader is she who doesn’t know when to enforce a programme and when to withdraw it,” she said.
The Prime Minister regretted that the people of the country are so ill-fated to have a leader like Khaleda who is only efficient in killing people. “Whenever BNP came to power it made the lives of people miserable,” she said.
Replying to another question, Hasina said that the win and defeat are the part of elections. “If people cast their votes in favour of our support-blessed candidates then we’ll win, otherwise not.”
About today’s press conference of Khaleda Zia where she asked the people of the country to take revenge on the government with the city polls, the Prime Minister said: “Revenge on whom, if people take revenge for her 92 days’ destructive politics, then on whom they will take the revenge,” she added.
She trashed Khaleda’s remarks as irresponsible and full of double standard.
The Prime Minister claimed that Khaleda violated the code of election conduct by taking out processions with a large number of motor vehicles for election campaign through obstructing vehicle movement on the streets.
Responding the BNP chief’s claim that the government has already laid out its blueprint for the city corporation elections, she said that nobody knows better than her about election blueprint, and refereed to Magura, Mirpur, Dhaka-10 by-lections during the BNP rule and the voter-less elections on February 15, 1996.