BNP searching for dark alleyways to assume power: PM Hasina

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Tuesday said Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) did not participate in the 7 January election out of fear of defeat and has been searching for dark ways to assume power after being rejected by the people time and again.

“They know they are boycotted by the people. That is why they don’t want to take part in the election. So, they are searching for different ways to go to regain power by destroying the electoral process. They are now looking for the ways of darkness bypassing the path of light, which is election,” she stated.

The prime minister was addressing the expatriate Awami League leaders and activists at her official residence, Ganabhaban, in the capital.

Sheikh Hasina asked the expatriates to stay alert against conspiracies saying that the plots are still being hatched.

“They (BNP and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami clique) are now demanding to cancel the election,” she said.

Referring to the 2008 parliamentary election, the prime minister said the BNP and Jamaat alliance got only 30 seats while the Awami League alone secured 233 seats.

“Since then, they don’t want any election. They have been setting fire to buses, launches, trains and burning people to death. The more they do terrorist activities and arson violence, the more the people reject them,” she asserted.

The Awami League president came down heavily on the BNP as they have been doing politics over their party office. “They lock their office and then unlock it. They have lost the keys of their office and the path too. They have turned into pedestrians who have lost their ways.”

BNP has one virtue and that is arson terrorism, she insisted.

Referring to removal of fishplates of the railway track in which several persons were killed, the prime minister further said the BNP men are skilled in laying traps to kill people.

She expressed that alongside conducting the violence, the BNP had distributed leaflets among the people urging them to boycott the election.

But, the people have cast their ballots spontaneously rejecting their appeal to not go to polling centres. “Not only this time (the 7 January election), the people have rejected them time and again. They did not take part in the election fearing loss.”

The prime minister thanked the people as they voted spontaneously and sent her party to power again.

Participation of women in large numbers in the election is a great achievement of the AL awareness campaigns that were run to make people understand that casting votes is their constitutional and civic rights, she continued.

In this connection, she mentioned that “a 130-year-old woman” exercised her franchise in the 7 January election. “I want to vote for Hasina,” she quoted the old woman as saying.

She continued: “Getting the trust and confidence of the people in me is my great achievement.”

The prime minister said the victory of Awami League in the election is the victory of the people and democracy as well. “The victory is also the victory of continuation of democracy and continuation of the development activities.”

After the Awami League assumed power, they have realised that the government is the servant of the people, she said.

“Being a daughter of the Father of the Nation, I will work as a public servant not as a prime minister to change the fate of the people,” she stated.

“We will turn Bangladesh into a poverty and hunger-free developed and prosperous country by 2041 in the spirit of the Liberation War as envisioned by the Father of the Nation,” she said.

The prime minister recalled with due respect the contributions of the expatriates in each of the democratic and progressive movements and in building the nation.

She said the expatriates played a great role in forming public opinions in favour of independent Bangladesh during the War of Liberation in 1971. She also praised them for sending remittances. “I thank you all as the remittance you send to Bangladesh is the main driving force of our economy.”

The prime minister also urged all Bangladeshi expats to take part in the universal pension scheme to secure their future.