Participants at the BBC Bangladesh Sanglap yesterday stressed on the need for holding dialogue between the ruling Awami League and one of the major political parties BNP for the sake of political stability in the country.
BBC Bangladesh Sanglap is a weekly debate programme held by BBC Bangladesh, encouraging dialogue between people, politicians and policymakers.
The panelists termed Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), student wing of the ruling AL, as a burden on the party for its unruly activities in recent times.
BNP Vice-Chairman Abdullah Al Noman said if the government did not initiate the dialogue with BNP immediately, political situation might deteriorate.
“The ruling AL formed the government with support of only 5% voters. Most of the people had not been supporting the present government,” he said.
A participant asked if BNP would sit for dialogue by giving recognition to the present government which they had been terming as “illegal,” to which the BNP leader replied that dialogue had many forms and there were examples of dialogues being held between two sides even during wars.
State Minister for Land Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Zaved asked: “They [BNP] participated in the City Corporation Elections and have been participating in the upazila elections, then why they did not participate in national elections?”
No dialogue would be held excluding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he said.
Regarding the activities of BCL, Zaved said Awami League was embarrassed by the unruly activities of Chhatra League; however, it did not shoulder any responsibility of the activities.
Police were already searching for the armed cadres who were involved with the attacks in RU, added the Awami League lawmaker from Chittagong-13 constituency.
Panelist Sadaf Noor-E-Islam, chairman of anthropology department at Chittagong University, said Awami League has to play a role to run BCL according to its organogram.
She said presence of armed student bodies in educational institutions is not favourable to educational atmosphere. “Every student body, backed by different political parties, does the same thing,” she said.
Regarding the development of Chittagong, the panelists said the port city was yet to be developed to the standard; however, the government was trying to develop it step by step.
Arifur Rahman, chief executive of Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), a non-government organisation said there was a lack of coordination among the government offices in the port city.
Chittagong faced discrimination in terms of getting power and gas from the national grid, claimed one participant.
The 45-minute debate was recorded at the Central Railway Building in Chittagong.
