Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Wednesday said that BNP founder Ziaur Rahman had become a member of Baksal by appealing to the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
He made the remarks while speaking at a rally, organized by Dhaka South City AL, in front of the party's Bangabandhu Avenue central office in the capital, marking the historic Mass Upsurge Day.
“The BNP is now like a pathless passerby,” the AL general secretary said, adding that Baksal was not a party with a single political entity but a national party involving all parties and opinions.
He said BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, who was the army's second-in-command under President Sheikh Mujib's rule, also became a member of the Baksal – Bangabandhu's "second revolution".
Quader said the BNP's movement with 54 parties reached an ebb from its tide as the country's people do not believe their speeches. He said the result of BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's red card was null.
“The BNP is now a party without a sight…the people of the country do not believe in their speeches,” Quader added.
Reminding the people of former AL general secretary Abdul Jalil's trump card ploy, Quader said just like trump card, Fakhrul's red card has also failed.
“We haven't started playing yet. What will you (BNP) do when we start playing?" he threw a question to opposition leaders.
He said that the independence of the country is not a trifling matter and it cannot be blown away by a flutist. Thousands have paid with blood for this independence which did not come in one day, the senior AL leader said.
Forming the national party
On the road to introducing the one-party system, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib on December 28, 1974 declared a state of emergency, which gave him the power to ban any political group. The order came into effect on January 6. He also promulgated the Special Powers Act.
On January 25, 1975, parliament passed a constitutional amendment authorizing a presidential system of government and a single national party with Sheikh Mujib as the president. He characterized it as his “second revolution".
Baksal was scheduled to officially replace the nation's other political parties and associations on September 1, 1975.
On February 24, Bangabandhu formed the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (Baksal) and banned the activities of all other parties. It required all other parties and associations, including various services and forces, to join the national party, and work unitedly in fighting corrosive forces and in rebuilding the nation.
The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSoD), Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party, Purbo Bangla Sammobadi Dal-Marxba-di-Leninbadi (East Bengal Communist Party Marxist–Leninist), East Pakistan Communist Party, and Bangladesh Communist Party (Leninist) did not join Baksal.
As Baksal chairman, he appointed for the national party a 15-member executive committee, a 120-member central committee, and five front organizations.
On June 6, President Mujib declared the constitution and five fronts of the national party.
On June 22, he declared a new district administrative system where each district would be governed by a council headed by a governor appointed personally by the president from among the members of Baksal.
Mujib had raised the status of the 61 subdivisions of the country to districts. The district governors – a vast majority of whom came from among politicians, followed by civil servants and military bureaucrats – were supposed to take charge on August 16.
