Grand AL office now in Kushtia

The Awami League has got a grandiose party office in Kushtia with a lavish interior decoration, putting its central office to kind of shame.

The 9,860-square-foot office, which was opened Saturday and housed on Bangabandhu Market on NS Road in the town, has 18 rooms adorned with gorgeous furnishings.

District AL president and general secretary have their separate rooms while the front organisations also have rooms. A total of 16 air-conditioners were installed in the office, built at the cost of around Tk 2.5 crore.

A mosaic of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and party Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif is at the entrance of the office.

There is also a large hall room in the office that would be rented out for commercial purposes. Internet facilities are available at the office while there is also a media cell. The office has separate prayer rooms for males and females, and a kitchen.

The office construction was allegedly funded with money from government relief and Food for Work programmes. Photo: Courtesy

In contrast, the five-storied AL headquarters is quite shabby, outside and inside. The central office has around 50 rooms, of which three have air-conditioners -- one in Jubo League office, another in a hall room and one in the party president Sheikh Hasina's room, which she has not used since 2009). The furniture too is battered.   

Sheikh Hasina's Dhanmondi office is three-storied. Almost all the rooms have air conditioners, but the interior of the office is not as luxurious as the newly built office in Kushtia.

The ruling AL in Kushtia seemed to have no problem finding the money for the building. A big chunk of the money came from government allocations for Test Relief (TR), Food for Work programmes and donation from businessmen and industrialists of the district, sources in the Kushtia AL told The Daily Star.

Chairmen, belonging to the ruling party in around 50 unions, out of the 65, had given the money allocated for TR and Food for Work programmes in the district to the office building fund, they said.

Even though many of them admitted before this newspaper of giving the money with directives from district AL leaders, none agreed to go on the record.

The Kushtia office puts the AL central office in Dhaka, Photo: Courtesy

Besides, party leaders also donated for building the office, which apparently is far better than the rest of the party offices, including the AL central office on Bangabandhu Avenue and party president Sheikh Hasina's Dhanmondi office.

There was no permanent AL office in Kushtia. Veteran party leader M Amir-ul Islam was using his home as a party office.

The construction of the new office began last year and was complete a month ago.

The inauguration of the office was also colourful and auspicious, only Hanif-loyals were invited. A good number of archways was set up and around half a kilometre of NS Road, on both directions, was colourfully decorated with banners and festoons.

The entire area was also decorated with lights.

To shame. The photos were taken recently. Photo: Courtesy

Anwar Ali, district unit president of an AL faction and also mayor of Kushtia Sadar municipality, told The Daily Star that they did not get invited and therefore did not attend the inauguration programme.

Contacted, president of another AL faction in the district, Alhaj Sadar Uddin Khan, refuted the allegation of using government funds for TR and Food for Work programmes. He said the allegation was baseless.

He claimed that the party had collected donations from its leaders and activists for the last two years to build the office.

“Front organisations also managed the money from its leaders and activists,” he said.

He claimed that there was a rumour that the office was built at a cost of Tk 2.5 crore. "It took around Tk 55-57 lakh to complete the construction of the office," said Sadar Uddin Khan.