Are MoU and agreement the same, Quader to Fakhrul

Memorandum of understanding and agreement are not same thing, said governing Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Monday.

"Mr Mirza Fakhrul, are memorandum of understanding and agreement the same? Don't you study? Don't you know the language of diplomacy? Listen, memorandum of understanding and agreement are not the same," he said while addressing a discussion at Dhaka District AL Office at Tejgaon in the capital.

Dhaka City North AL organised the discussion marking the 75th founding anniversary of Awami League.

The road transport and bridges minister said the government has been able to realise different types of facilities, as there is friendly relationship between Bangladesh and India.

If disbelief takes place, friendship doesn't exist, he stated.

"We signed memorandum of understanding with Malaysia for Padma Bridge. But later, we built the Padma Bridge with our domestic fund. Had we signed agreement, we would have been bound to give the charge of constructing Padma Bridge to them (Malaysia)," he said.

The AL general secretary said Mirza Fakhrul now is in severe problem as an order came from London last night.

Taking a dig at the forming of committees of the BNP, Quader said order came to include someone and exclude someone and this thing is going inside the BNP now.

There is disbelief inside BNP centering the movement against AL as the leaders of BNP are now blaming one another as an agent of the government, Quader said.

"Then who will wage the movement? BNP's programme is fake," he said.

Quader said India is a friend of AL government but BNP wanted India's slavery when it was in power.

When Narendra Modi came to power for the first time, BNP leaders went with flowers and sweets to greet him but now BNP is opposing India.

"This is BNP," he said.

In 2001, BNP came to power by promising that it would sell gas to India, he alleged.

AL presidium member Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Dhaka North City Corporation mayor Atiqul Islam also spoke on the occasion, among others, with Dhaka city north AL president Sheikh Bazlur Rahman in the chair.