PM hopeful of AL's win in JS polls
Shrugging off the crushing defeats of the Awami League-backed candidates in four city corporation polls, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday expressed optimism about returning to power through the next general elections.
“God willing, we will get a chance to serve the people again ... and we will fulfil the dream of the father of the nation by building a golden Bangladesh by 2021,” Hasina said.
Hasina was speaking at Gono Bhaban during a views-exchange meeting with party grassroots leaders from Rangpur.
Also the president of ruling Awami League, Hasina urged the opposition leader to take the path of democracy, saying the next parliamentary elections would be held following those in other countries.
Like many elections including the recent city corporation ones during her government's term, the national elections would also be free and fair, she observed.
“Awami League has no intention to rig the votes.”
In the June 15 polls to the Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet city corporations, all the four AL-backed mayoral candidates lost to their BNP-backed rivals by wide margins.
She said the caretaker government system had been introduced in 1996 following her party's movement as “no elections under the BNP government were held freely and fairly”.
However, no one could question the impartiality and fairness of the elections during the terms of her government, she added.
“Now that the BNP-backed candidates have won the city corporation polls, why is the opposition saying free and fair elections are not possible under the Awami League government?”
Castigating the last military-backed caretaker government, Hasina said no one -- politicians, teachers, students and businessmen -- could have escaped its repression. Even Khaleda Zia and she herself had been jailed, she recalled.
“So who can tell she won't be sent to jail again if a caretaker government takes over? Who will guarantee that it will hold any elections at all?”
The prime minister blamed BNP and Jamaat for “burning the Quran” during Hefajat-e Islam's May 5 programme, saying they wanted to come to power by using Hefajat.
During the 25-minute speech, Hasina highlighted her government's “development works” and the last BNP-led government's “misdeeds”.
AL leaders Satish Chandra Roy, Kazi Zafarullah, Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, Abul Hasnat Abdullah and Mrinal Kanti Das were present among others at the meeting.
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