Bangladesh Nationalist Party will convene a meeting of its parliamentary party on Monday seemingly to decide on its strategy on participation in the proceedings of the upcoming budget session.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will preside over the meeting set to be held at 4pm at the leader of the opposition’s office inside the parliament complex, opposition chief whip, Zainul Abdin Farroque, said in a press release on Saturday.
The budget session of the Jatiya Sangsad is set to begin tomorrow (Monday).
If the BNP decides to join the budget session, it would be the first time the party would join a budget session in the last five years.
The BNP and its allies have not attended any of the four previous budget sessions of the Awami League-led ninth parliament that will expire on October 25.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith will present the national budget for the 2013-14 fiscal, the last budget of this government. 41 lawmakers of BNP, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Jatiya Party have so far avoided the budget sessions.
Opposition MPs have been to House sessions only in the beginning of every year.
The finance minister always presents the national budgets in June. In the budget sessions, most of the MPs get significant amount of fixed time to discuss the budget and the political issues they think important without intervention from the speaker.
Parliamentary observers say the budget is the highest political document of an elected government and the budget session makes opportunities for the opposition to reap political gains through highlighting the failures of the incumbent in the budget speech.
Parliamentary records show the BNP and its allies joined the first sitting of the House on January 25, 2009. They began boycotting from the second day, on January 29, over a reshuffling of the front row sitting arrangement by Speaker Abdul Hamid.
They withdrew their boycott as the speaker assured them of giving more seats in the 2009 budget session. However, at the budget session the opposition expressed discontent over the sitting arrangements and began boycotting sessions again.
They returned to the House on February 11, 2010, to preserve their memberships as the constitution stipulates that MPs must not stay away from the assembly for 90 consecutive days.
At the budget session of 2010 the opposition MPs resumed their boycott and stayed away from the House for more than a year. They returned on March 15, 2011, as the 90 day limit approached once again.
This feat was repeated on March 18 last year.
On average, most of the BNP legislators have been absent from the House for 83 consecutive days. They must return to the House by mid-June or lose membership.
The BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has attended only eight of the 370 working days of the current parliament. The BNP as a party attended 54 days.
The BNP has 39 MPs in the 350-member parliament. Jamaat has two
seats while Bangladesh Jatiya Party has one MP.
