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The main Bangladesh opposition BNP yesterday claimed that their apprehension of manipulation any election under Awami League-led administration has proved right with the recent remarks of prime minister’s adviser HT Imam about the January 5 polls. |
“We’d said earlier that Awami League was trying to hold an election with a political motive to perpetuate its power by using the election commission. Our allegation has proved right with HT Imam’s remarks,” said Bangladesh National Party (BNP) acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Earlier on Wednesday, HT Imam, addressing a programme of the Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL), student front of ruling Awami League (AL) at Dhaka University, said: “You (BCL men) just pass the written test; we’ll see how much we can help you with the viva voce to be civil servants of the government. Our leader (Sheikh Hasina) has told us to arrange jobs for you by any means.”
He also pointed out the advantage of having party men in the administration, and how the AL benefited from them.
“Days before the January 5 polls, many pro-AL officials were inducted in mobile courts that helped the government resist the BNP-Jamaat’s bid to thwart the election. They (pro-AL officials) stood beside us,” Imam said.
Fakhrul briefed the reporters about the BNP standing committee meeting’s decisions and the proposals made there.
He said the BNP policymakers strongly denounced the inclusion of the names of BNP leaders Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury and Habiganj Mayor GM Gaous in the supplementary charge-sheet by the CID in the former finance minister SAMS Kibria murder case.
The BNP spokesman alleged that their party-backed public representatives are being implicated in various cases with a political motive to cripple the party leadership.
The CID on Thursday submitted a supplementary charge-sheet against 32 people, including former minister Lutfozzaman Babar, former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury, Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury and Habiganj Mayor GM Gaous, in the Kibria murder case.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted the charge-sheet incorporating the names of 11 more accused in the last supplementary charge-sheet before a local court.
Five people, including Kibria, were killed and 70 others injured in a grenade attack on a public meeting of Awami League at Baidder Bazar in Sadar Upazila on January 27, 2005.
Fakhrul said the government is implicating BNP leaders, including its chairperson and senior vice chairman, in ‘false cases’ as part of its heinous plot to illegally cling to power and suppress the party’s democratic movement.
The BNP leader warned that the consequences of such acts will not be good.
He said the BNP will continue the movement against the government and will announce tougher programmes in due time to force it to hold a fresh inclusive election under a non-party administration.
