AL leaders want to make president controversial

BNP yesterday alleged that Awami League leaders were trying to make President Abdul Hamid controversial centring on forming a new Election Commission because they did not want a free, fair and inclusive general election.

“The Awami League knows it very well that they will not be able to return to power if a free, fair and inclusive election is held in the country. So they want to create controversies centring on the president,” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at a discussion.

Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum, a pro-BNP lawyers' platform, organised the discussion, marking BNP founder and ex-president Ziaur Rahman's 81st birth anniversary.

Pointing to President Abdul Hamid's speech in parliament, the BNP spokesman said, “We thank the president [Hamid] as he said he wanted to see democracy progressing taking all political parties together.”

He added, “We are also repeatedly saying it. We want to see an inclusive democracy, election and politics so that all political parties can participate in it. Unfortunately, the party [AL] which has come to power by force doesn't want it.”

Pointing to AL general secretary Obaidul Quader's statement on Sunday that BNP had proposed former chief justice KM Hasan's name to the president for appointment to the search committee to reconstitute the EC, Fakhrul said it was regrettable when AL top leaders made such “baseless and unguarded” remarks.

President Abdul Hamid held talks with 31 political parties including ruling AL and BNP on forming the next EC, starting on December 18 last year, and is likely to form the search committee soon.

During its meeting with the president, BNP proposed some names for the search committee but neither the party nor the Bangabhaban disclosed those.

The country's political arena had gone from bad to worse when the last BNP government extended the retirement age of judges, resulting in Justice KM Hasan being in line to head the then next caretaker government.

Addressing a programme in the city, Quader on Sunday said, “You [Khaleda] have proposed the name of ex-chief justice KM Hasan, whom you wanted to make your chief adviser, to be included in the search committee. Was not KM Hasan the international affairs adviser of BNP? Then who is neutral? Who is biased?”

Meanwhile, senior AL leader and Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday at his office at the secretariat told journalists that Quader need not go to the president to know whose names BNP proposed to include in the search committee because BNP leaders disclosed it to Quader.