Rare gesture, late response
In a gesture not so common in the country's political culture, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday went to Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office to console the BNP chief grieving the loss of younger son, but she could not meet her archrival.
The prime minister returned from the gate as it was locked from inside, and nobody from the BNP chief's office was there to receive her.
While Hasina was on her way to Gulshan from the Gono Bhaban, one of Khaleda's aides told the media that the BNP chief was sedated by doctors as she felt unwell and thus won't be able to meet the PM.
In a late-night development, Khaleda's Press Secretary Maruf Kamal Khan said the BNP chairperson thanks Hasina for coming to her office to express sympathies. “Now, whenever she wishes to come here, she would be welcomed,” Maruf quoted Khaleda as saying.
The BNP chief made the comment after she woke up, he told journalists around 11:40pm.
Earlier, accompanied by senior Awami League leaders Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed and her aides, Hasina went to the Gulshan office at 8:36pm.
As she got down from the car, her special assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil approached the gate and found it locked. He asked security personnel, who were inside the gate, to open it. But nobody responded or came out and the PM's convoy left at 8:43pm.
PM's Information Adviser Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, who had reached there before Hasina, then talked to reporters in front of the Gulshan office. He said it was unfortunate that the PM was not allowed to get inside. Keeping the gate locked was not courteous.
"Leaving aside all the protocols, the prime minister came here to console the BNP chairperson on the death of her son. She came here as a mother to another mother. There was no political motive behind it," he added.
Around 9:10pm, BNP standing committee members Moudud Ahmed and Sarwari Rahman emerged from the Gulshan office. But they declined to make any comment on this.
The PM's initiative came at a time when the country's political situation has heated up over Khaleda's confinement to her Gulshan office for more than two weeks until January 18 and the BNP's enforcing nonstop blockade.
Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who have been governing the country in turns since restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1991, barely talked to each other.
But in May 2009, Khaleda went to Hasina's residence Sudha Sadhan to offer her condolences at the death of the latter's husband MA Wazed Miah.
Around 8:20pm yesterday, while Hasina was on her way from the Gono Bhaban to Gulshan, BNP chief’s special assistant Shimul Biswas told reporters, "Khaleda Zia is feeling unwell. She is asleep after being administered a sedative to cope with the shock. Therefore, she is unable to meet the prime minister."
Shimul claimed he had informed PM's assistant private secretary Shaifuzzaman Shikhor around 7:10pm that the BNP chief was too ill to meet the PM and was kept asleep on doctor's prescription.
Except for Shimul, no BNP leader knew about this communication until Shimul talked to the media and members of the Special Security Force were deployed in front of Khaleda's office, party insiders said.
Later around 9:20pm, Shimul again talked to the media. This time he called upon all not to do “dirty politics” over the PM's visit.
“Some staff of the Prime Minister Office have been alleging that we did not open the gate and did not allow the prime minister to call on Khaleda Zia is not true.”
He claimed soon after the PM reached the Gulshan office, he rushed from the first floor with a condolence book. As he came outside the gate, Sheikh Hasina left by then.
Talking to The Daily Star, Shikhor said the Prime Minister's Office in the evening had informed Shimul about Hasina's willingness to visit Khaleda.
Shimul just said he was trying to contact Khaleda. “But he [Shimul] did not tell me anything about Khaleda's getting asleep,” Shikhor added.
Talking to a private TV channel around 10:00pm, PM's aide Mahbubul Hoque Shakil said Shimul didn't come out of the BNP chief's office when Sheikh Hasina went there.
Earlier from 7:30pm, additional number of law enforcement agencies and members of President Guard Regiments were deployed around Khaleda's office, and people's movement in the area was restricted as soon as the news spread that PM was to visit Khaleda.
Earlier around 5:45pm, Col (retd) Oli Ahmed met the BNP chief and expressed condolences over the death of her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko.
Contacted for comments over these events, Transparency International Bangladesh Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said the PM's initiative was very much logical.
“Although in the context of a family set back for Begum Zia, the prime minister's decision to go to meet her opponent had a political significance because of the timing,” he said in a text message.
“The prime ministers decision reflected political maturity and acumen which BNP failed to meet. BNP's decision was wrong from social and human relations point of view; it was also politically incorrect.”
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