President will decide on EC: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said that the president will decide on Election Commission reforms after discussion with all political parties.

“The honorable President will take a decision in this regard after discussion with all political parties,” she told a Victory Day discussion staged by Awami League at Krishibid Institution Auditorium this afternoon.

She accused BNP of grabbing power in treacherous methods and advised the party to practise democracy keeping faith on people’s will.

“I would like to tell if you believe in democracy, then practise democracy instead of playing tricks to grab state power,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, said the BNP was making an effort expecting someone to install them in power while “they (BNP) would be seated on a nagordola (merry-go-round)”.

“But none would come with that merry-go-round and won’t install them in power . . . their hopes are far long ones,” she added.

The premier said the quarters from where BNP expected the favour by now understood their ploy and “they won’t respond to the BNP call”.

“BNP had earlier sought help from them, but they didn’t come,” she said.

AL Advisory Council members Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed, presidium members Begum Matia Chowdhury and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, general secretary Obaidul Quader, former mayor of Sylhet Badaruddin Ahmed Qamran, AL Central Committee member Nurul Islam Thandu, Dhaka North City AL General Secretary Sadeq Khan and Dhaka South City AL General Secretary Shahe Alam Murad also took part in the discussion.

AL Publicity Secretary Dr Hasan Mahmud and Deputy Publicly Secretary Aminul Islam Amin conducted the discussion.

At the outset of the discussion, a one-minute silence was observed in memory of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib and other martyrs of the August 15 carnage, four national leaders and martyrs of the Liberation War.

She said the current pace of development initiated by the present Awami League government frightened BNP and they also “know it well that the people of the country won’t give them vote due to their past misdeeds”.

“Why the people would cast vote for BNP which was defeated in both elections and movement? Why the people would give vote to those who didn’t give anything except consignment of 10 truckloads of arms, corruption and smuggling,” she said.

Referring to mayhem and rampage the BNP-Jamaat nexus unleashed in 2013 and 2014 and in the first three months of 2015 to foil the January 5 polls and unseat the government, the prime minister called upon the people not to forget the BNP-Jamaat atrocities at that time.

Sheikh Hasina said the BNP-Jamaat clique burnt over 150 people to death and torched 582 schools by turning the entire country into hell.

“Son was burnt to death in front of mother, while husband was killed in front of wife in arson attacks and Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Zia carried out this massacre across the country,” she said.

“So I would like to tell the people not to forget these heinous acts of the BNP-Jamaat,” she said.

Source: BSS