Prime Minster and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina has greeted the people of Bangladesh on the occasion of her party’s 70th founding anniversary, saying the party along with the people will build a hunger-poverty free, happy and prosperous Sonar Bangla as dreamt by Bangabandhu.
“On this day I recall with respect the greatest Bangali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I recall Awami League’s founder president Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque. I recall with respect Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy,” she said in a message issued on Saturday marking the anniversary
She recalled with respect the four national leaders, and all martyrs of struggles for freedom, Liberation War and struggles for democracy and all leaders and workers of the Awami League who had embraced martyrdom to turn the party into the largest organization of masses.
The Awami League chief greeted the party leaders and workers and supporters on the occasion alongside the countrymen, reports BSS.
She recalled that the party was established on June 23 in 1949 at the Rose Garden on K M Das Lane in Dhaka, and said the history of the party is closely linked with the people’s struggle for realizing their rights.
“The Language Movement in 1952, the Jukta Front election in 1954, the anti-Ayub movement in 1962, the restoration of communal harmony after the 1964 riot, the six-point movement in 1966, and the mass upsurge in 1969 - all took place under the leadership of the Awami League,” she said.
In the general election of 1970, the people of Bangladesh gave an absolute majority to the Awami League and in continuation to that, Bangabandhu on March 7 in 1971 declared that it was the struggle for freedom and independence, the prime minister mentioned.
She continued that on the Black Night of March 25 in 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces swooped on the people, and the history’s most brutal genocide began.
Sheikh Hasina said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had declared the country’s independence using the then EPR wireless in the first hour of March 26, she said.
Soon after the declaration of independence by Bangabandhu, Pakistani occupation forces arrested him and sent to West Pakistan jail, she added.
The premier said the country had achieved its final victory on December 16 in 1971 following the Liberation War conducted under the Awami League government formed at Mujibnagar in Meherpur district on April 10.
On August 15 in 1975, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members were assassinated.
Subsequently on November 3 the same year, the four national leaders were killed in prison to make Awami League leaderless.
The prime minister said there were national and international conspiracies to destroy the Awami League, but those intrigues went in vain.
She said after a long struggle to establish democracy, the Awami League returned to power in 1996, and then ran the country successfully from 1996 to 2001.
Sheikh Hasina said the Awami League government turned food-deficit Bangladesh into a food-surplus country, signed the Ganges water-sharing treaty with India, and inked the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace treaty.
Waging a movement against the BNP-Jamaat government and facing all conspiracies of the caretaker government, the Awami League was once again voted to power in 2008, she added.
In the last decade, she said the Awami League government carried out tremendous development in all sectors, specially agriculture, education, health, communication, information technology, infrastructure, power, rural economic growth, and diplomacy.
“Bangladesh is now a role model of development in the world. The country’s GDP growth stood at 7.86% last year, and this year it will be above 8%. The people’s income and purchasing capacity have increased. Our per capita income has increased to $1,909,” she noted.
The premier said the income of over 50 million people enhanced to middle-income level from the lower-income status, and the country achieved self-sufficiency in food production.
“At present, one-fourth of the people have been brought under the social safety net, while 93% of the people are getting electricity facilities,” Sheikh Hasina said, adding different development data including the health facilities for the rural people who can get 30 types of medicines at free of cost.
She said Bangladesh has launched Bangabandhu Satellite-1 into the space as the 57th country in the world.
The Awami League government, she said, has been implementing massive programs for infrastructural development including construction of roads, bridges, flyovers, alleviated expressway, and railways.
Construction works of metro-rail in Dhaka is underway while the Padma Multipurpose Bridge is being constructed with the country’s own finance, she added.
The premier said her government is pledge-bound to turn Bangladesh into a prosperous country by implementing Vision 2021 and Vision 2041.
She called upon the people irrespective of party affiliations and opinions to come forward to continue this trend of development.
