PM hints at DCC polls in November
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has hinted at holding polls to the two Dhaka city corporations (North and South) in November, sources say.
The government would go for the long-due DCC elections to mitigate public miseries, Hasina, also president of the ruling Awami League, said at a party meeting and asked her party leaders to make necessary preparations to that end.
The directive came at the meeting of the AL Central Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, at Gono Bhaban on Monday, the sources add.
The erstwhile DCC was split into two -- Dhaka South City Corporation and Dhaka North City Corporation -- in November 2011.
The last DCC polls were held on April 25, 2002, when the BNP-Jamaat alliance was in power. Sadeque Hossain Khoka, then a minister of the BNP-led government, became mayor in that election boycotted by the then main opposition party AL.
At the meeting, Hasina also urged the world conscience and the Muslim Ummah to be vocal and stand up against the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the killings of the Palestinians.
She questioned the silence of several organisations of the country about the Israeli killings, saying those bodies were normally vocal against alleged human rights violation in Bangladesh.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia the same day also wrote to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offering her sympathy over deaths of innocent civilians in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The BNP chief handed over the letter to Palestine Ambassador in Dhaka Shaher Mohammad when she went to the Palestine mission. She also handed over a cheque of Tk 500,000 for the Gaza victims.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, BNP Vice-chairman Shamser Mobin Chowdhury said Khaleda had expressed her sadness at the deaths of Palestinians, including women and children, in the Israeli offensive.
Hasina, for her part, strongly condemned the mass killing in Gaza during the holy Ramadan and Eid festival, saying no Muslim could accept such killings and the heinous crimes Israel was committing during the holy Ramadan.
"The way the Palestinian brothers and sisters, especially the children, are attacked and killed by Israeli military can never be accepted. We strongly protest and condemn this mass killing," she said.
"We remain beside them and would remain so in future."
Such mass killing must stop, she demanded.
On silence of various organisations in the country, she said, "I wonder how those who always cry for a single murder in the country remain silent about the Israeli atrocities on the Palestinians. Nobody says anything about the brutal killings of women, children and common people in Palestine."
The meeting, however, did not discuss anything about the party's organisational activities. The meeting finalised party programmes to mark the national mourning day on August 15 and the 10th anniversary of August 21 grenade attack.
Comments