AL starts district tours next week

Leaders of the ruling Awami League will go on a countrywide tour within a week with a view to strengthening its organisational activities at grassroots level.
They will also make the grassroots aware of anti-government propagandas by the BNP-Jamaat coalition and direct them to counter those falsehoods.
The initiative has been taken as the activities of the party members at grassroots level apparently came to a standstill since the present government assumed office in January last year.
The tour programme will be finalised today at an AL Central Working Committee meeting at the AL President's Dhanmondi office. The latest political situation of the country will also be discussed at the meeting at 10:00am with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Party men said a draft of the tour plan has been made and would be approved in the meeting.
The AL central body excluding the party president will be divided into at least seven groups and each of them will be led by an AL presidium member on the tour.
Sources said the leaders would visit different districts and learn about the organisational condition and problems during the tour and submit a report to the party high command with their recommendations for solution.
Besides, the leaders will seek to make the lazing district-level committees active and gear up for councils of 11 district units that are long due. They will also try to resolve feuds within the AL rank and file in many districts.
Recruitment of new members in the party and renewal of primary membership will also be held during the tour.
The central leaders would give directives to the grassroots to counter the conspiracies by the opposition and mobilise huge public opinion prior to the trial of war criminals.
AL Deputy Office Secretary Mrinal Kanti Das told The Daily Star, "During the tour programme, central leaders will collect first hand information as to whether the prices of essentials are shooting up or if the farmers are facing any problems while getting fertiliser, cash subsidy, etc. that the government is providing them with, and observe the Open Market Sale of rice."
He said they would also see the condition of those who had been tortured and repressed during the BNP-Jamaat coalition government, and find out if they have been given any facilities yet.
AL Presidium member Obaidul Quader said the leaders would give necessary advice to the grassroots to run the district units of the organisation and highlight the government's success.