JP upset as Raushan fails to meet world leaders

Opposition Leader Raushan Ershad's repeated failure to get appointments with visiting  prominent world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, triggered criticism in and outside her party, Jatiya Party insiders said. 

Even JP Chairman HM Ershad yesterday in public expressed his serious disappointment over the matter, saying he along with his party's leaders and activists were disappointed and angered by it.

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Talking to journalists at his village home in Rangpur, Ershad, also a special envoy to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said his party was trying to get information as to why his wife Raushan had failed to make a courtesy call on Xi.

"It is the foreign ministry that prepares tour schedule of any chief of state or government during their visit to Bangladesh. We are trying to know why there was no schedule of meeting between Xi and the opposition leader. We will inform the media [about the matter] when we know about it.”

Raushan's failure to pay the courtesy call suggested that the party is of no importance in domestic and world politics, party insiders said.

Talking to The Daily Star, a number of JP central leaders said Chinese President Xi Jinping and US Secretary of State John Kerry's not meeting with Raushan clearly indicated that the JP has “no importance”.

Xi came to Dhaka on a two-day state visit on Friday, while Kerry came here for a nine-hour visit in August.

During Kerry's visit, Raushan could only manage to give her visiting card to Kerry after a programme in the city where she attended as an audience.

JP insiders said apart from the party's designated leaders' hectic efforts, the government also usually proposed the visiting world leaders for holding meetings with the main opposition leader. 

They added that like many of the party leaders, the international community also thinks that the JP is not the real opposition due to its “bizarre role” having its share in the cabinet and in the opposition.

JP has one minister and two state ministers in the cabinet. Besides, the party's chief Ershad is a special envoy to the prime minister.

Responding to a query, GM Quader, co-chairman of the JP, said, "Chinese president didn't sit with the Jatiya Party leaders as his country thinks our people lack confidence in our party.” 

This incident would drift the party "downwards", he said, adding that the refusal of Jinping to meet Raushan might put negative impact on the party.

Contacted, lawmaker Fakhrul Imam, also the political secretary of Raushan, said they did not have the exact information why the Chinese president didn't meet Raushan.

Sources in the JP said after the formation of the present parliament through the January 5 national polls in 2014, boycotted by top political parties, most world leaders visiting Bangladesh did not hold meetings with Raushan.

Later, the foreign ministry reportedly requested foreign missions in Dhaka so that any visiting delegates or envoys meet Raushan, sources in the JP said. 

Following the initiative of the foreign ministry, some visiting world leaders, including Indian PM Narendra Modi and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal, met Raushan.

But in recent times, some world leaders, including Kerry and Jinping, "refused" to meet Raushan, party sources said.