Agencies
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her Awami League party is pledge-bound to continue Bangladesh’s progress thwarting conspiracy by Bangladesh National Party of former prime minister Khaleda Zia.
“The advancement of Bangladesh will continue as the country is moving ahead and continue to move,” Hasina said while addressing an Iftar organised in London by the expatriate Bangladeshis on Tuesday. The prime minister is on a three-day official trip to the British capital.
She called upon all to remain united against those who resorted to corruption, embezzled the funds of orphans, siphoned off money abroad and patronised militancy and
terrorism.
The PM said those who are trying to cause any harm to the country and its people, they will never be successful.
“I swear, they won’t be able to cause any harm. They won’t be able to do anything against the country,” she said pointing at Zia’s BNP, which boycotted January 5 elections and tried to destabilise the country.
She said if any party boycotts an election with a plan to thwart it and ultimately fails to do so and even fails to wage a movement, then the responsibility cannot be shifted to common people.
Hasina said she has been trying to uphold the democratic spirit in Bangladesh and ensure rule of law in the country despite the BNP was trying to prevent her from doing so.
She said the BNP tried to do everything possible to resist the elections.
“But people didn’t respond to their call as they had not forgotten the wounds they had suffered from 2001 to 2006,” the PM said, adding that more than 40% of the people took part in the elections waving the threat of the then opposition.
She said her government has got the chance to carry on the development works and hoped that her government would be able to accomplish what needs to be done in the rest of her four and a half years’ time of the current tenure.
Hasina referred to the execution of killers of Bangladesh’s independence architect Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and trial of the crimes committed during the country’s liberation war in 1971 for
establishing rule of law.
The British government has shown keen interest for more engagement with Bangladesh, she said referring to her meeting with British counterpart David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.
Hasina called upon the youth to move ahead imbued with the ideology of Awami League upholding the flag of her party as only Awami League wants the betterment and welfare of
common people.
“We’ve been working round the clock for ensuring the welfare of people,” she told the meeting attended by chairman of the home affairs select committee and lawmaker Keith Vaz, All European AL president Anil Das Gupta, Belgium AL president Rashid, UK AL organizing secretary Sajjad Miah, joint general secretary Naimuddin Nizam, London AL president Nurul Haque among others.
