Accept our demands to avoid chaos before national polls: BNP

Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has urged the government to dissolve the parliament and step down to avoid confrontation if they want to move forward for dialogue.
“If the government wants to avert conflicts, they should dissolve the parliament and step down. If they want to move towards discussion, their first task will
be the dissolution of the parliament,” BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Saturday.
“We believed in the government and participated in the national election in 2018. The consequences are now evident. We have been urging them to step down,” he said in reply to a query of the journalists during a press conference at the BNP chairperson’s political office in Gulshan, Dhaka.
When asked if they would engage in dialogue if the government did not resign, Fakhrul Islam said, “The question of trusting them may not arise. Resignation must come first, then discussion.”
Commenting on the 50th anniversary of the National Parliament, BNP Secretary General said that the current National Parliament is a completely ineffective one.
“We think that this parliament is completely ineffective. This parliament is not acceptable to the people. It is not an elected parliament, but an unelected parliament,” he said.
“There were many speeches in Parliament on Friday. They made such speeches that this is the best parliament. If you look into it, you won’t find any… How many proposals and discussions on important issues for people were discussed? The demands of the people are not discussed there,” he said.
Commenting on the speech of President Abdul Hamid in the special session of the parliament, Fakhrul said, “We respect the President…he is the President. But constitutionally, he does not have much power. We had gone to the President to form the Election Commission. We had also given him specific proposals. But unfortunately, he could not implement any of them. We believe that he has read out the statement given by the government.”
“However, I would like to add that there is speech that I found very appealing. The President said, ‘Undemocratic development can never become universal.’ That’s a good point. He also said that democracy cannot be practiced through conflict and violence. Those are good words.”
Commenting on the Bangabazar fire, he said, “Yesterday, a team from the fire brigade went to Gausia Market for an inspection. If these things were done earlier, the fire at Bangabazar would not have happened. Then it occurred to them that they needed to go to Gausia. An irresponsible government has no responsibility towards its people.”