Return to Parliament, discuss India visit, PM urges Opposition leader
BNP-Jamaat duo resorts to falsehood to confuse people, Hasina says
Dhaka, Jan 16 (UNB)-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia to return to Parliament and discuss specially her much-talked-about official visit to India, as the BNP chairperson is fiercely critical of the outcome of the trip.
Addressing a press conference on the Prime Minster’s Office premises on Saturday afternoon, the Prime Minister also requested the opposition party, which has long been abstaining from attending parliament sessions, to uphold national interest above party interest.
All high-profile Awami League leaders, including advisory council members Amir Hossain Amu MP, Tofail Ahmed MP, Abdur Razzak MP, Suranjit Sengupta MP, Presidium members Sheikh Selim MP, Deputy leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury MP, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, joint general secretaries Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Mahbubul Haque Hanif were present.
The PM was also flanked by AL allies in the ruling Grand Alliance like Jatiya Party Chairman Hossain Mohammad Ershad, Samyabadi Dal chief and Industries Minister Dilip Barua, Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon MP and JSD President Hasanul Haque Inu.
The Prime Minister alleged that the BNP-Jamaat alliance is propagating falsehood over her India visit to confuse the country’s people.
“Let us keep our beloved motherland above party interest and participate in the endeavor for change,” she said.
Asked about the opposition party’s contentions that Sheikh Hasina has sacrificed national interest during her India tour, the Prime Minister said: “They (opposition party) are habituated to spreading falsehood and canards.”
Hasina said she has completely safeguarded country and its people’s interests during her visit to India, during which three agreements and two MoUs were signed and a 50-point joint communiqué on the Hasina-Manmohan summit talks was issued with broad accords on major issues between the two neighboring countries.
“We never sell out our country. Thirty lakh people, including my father, mother, brothers and almost all other family members, have sacrificed their lives for the independence of Bangladesh. Then, how could I and my party sell out Bangladesh or its interests!” she wondered in her rebuttal to the criticisms.
Hasina said it is Awami League which, during its previous tenure, ensured fair share of the Ganges waters through striking the Ganges water-sharing treaty.
“During my India visit, I also demanded fair share of the waters of all the 54 common rivers. I never forget to say about my country’s interests. But when she (Khaleda Zia) visited India during her last tenure, she did not mention share of Bangladesh in the Ganga river,” the Prime Minister told the crowded press conference.
In reply to another question on Tipaimukh Dam, she said her Indian counterpart, Dr Manmohan Singh, assured her that India would do nothing that can be harmful to Bangladesh and its people.
“The last BNP-Jamaat cabinet approved the then Flood Action Plan in which Tipaimukh affairs were also included. Now they are so vocal about the Tipaimukh construction, but why they did not do anything during their tenure regarding construction of Tipaimukh Dam?” the Prime Minister questioned.
She said present Finance Minister Dr AMA Muhith and former Foreign Minister late Abdus Samad Azad, both Awami League leaders, first brought the issue of Tipaimukh dam to people’s notice.
“But one of their (BNP-Jamaat Alliance) ministers had said that any dam on Tipaimukh will not harm Bangladesh,” she said.
To another question on BNP-Jamaat’ anti-India campaign, the Prime Minister said nothing can be achieved through quarrelling rather mutual understanding and consensus is the only way which can ensure benefits of all in the South Asian region.
Sheikh Hasina described poverty as the biggest enemy of South Asia and emphasized collective efforts to remove poverty completely from the region.
Asked why Bangladesh could not conclude the much-expected Teesta Water-sharing Treaty during her visit, the Prime Minister said its responsibility goes to the BNP-Jamaat alliance. “A big issue like this needs much time to be settled. Then, why the BNP government didn’t take effective steps to advance the process of Teesta treaty?”
She said the BNP-Jamaat alliance did not expedite people’s development rather it had stopped some 99 development projects taken up by the past Awami League government.
About the BNP-Jamaat smear campaign that through the bilateral agreements with India the present government has pushed the country’s independence and sovereignty under threat, the Prime Minister said when the last Awami League government signed the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Treaty in 1997, BNP and its allies had said that India would occupy Bangladesh territories up to Feni district.
“But the reality is that India did not occupy our land and she (Khaleda Zia) becomes parliament member from a constituency in the Feni district,” she told the journalists.
Asked about the BNP statement that Sheikh Hasina’s India visit was ‘100- percent unsuccessful’, the Prime Minister quoted some lines from a poem of Rabindranath Tagore and said: “I wanted to be victorious and I won.”
Addressing a press conference on the Prime Minster’s Office premises on Saturday afternoon, the Prime Minister also requested the opposition party, which has long been abstaining from attending parliament sessions, to uphold national interest above party interest.
All high-profile Awami League leaders, including advisory council members Amir Hossain Amu MP, Tofail Ahmed MP, Abdur Razzak MP, Suranjit Sengupta MP, Presidium members Sheikh Selim MP, Deputy leader of the House Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury MP, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, joint general secretaries Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Mahbubul Haque Hanif were present.
The PM was also flanked by AL allies in the ruling Grand Alliance like Jatiya Party Chairman Hossain Mohammad Ershad, Samyabadi Dal chief and Industries Minister Dilip Barua, Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon MP and JSD President Hasanul Haque Inu.
The Prime Minister alleged that the BNP-Jamaat alliance is propagating falsehood over her India visit to confuse the country’s people.
“Let us keep our beloved motherland above party interest and participate in the endeavor for change,” she said.
Asked about the opposition party’s contentions that Sheikh Hasina has sacrificed national interest during her India tour, the Prime Minister said: “They (opposition party) are habituated to spreading falsehood and canards.”
Hasina said she has completely safeguarded country and its people’s interests during her visit to India, during which three agreements and two MoUs were signed and a 50-point joint communiqué on the Hasina-Manmohan summit talks was issued with broad accords on major issues between the two neighboring countries.
“We never sell out our country. Thirty lakh people, including my father, mother, brothers and almost all other family members, have sacrificed their lives for the independence of Bangladesh. Then, how could I and my party sell out Bangladesh or its interests!” she wondered in her rebuttal to the criticisms.
Hasina said it is Awami League which, during its previous tenure, ensured fair share of the Ganges waters through striking the Ganges water-sharing treaty.
“During my India visit, I also demanded fair share of the waters of all the 54 common rivers. I never forget to say about my country’s interests. But when she (Khaleda Zia) visited India during her last tenure, she did not mention share of Bangladesh in the Ganga river,” the Prime Minister told the crowded press conference.
In reply to another question on Tipaimukh Dam, she said her Indian counterpart, Dr Manmohan Singh, assured her that India would do nothing that can be harmful to Bangladesh and its people.
“The last BNP-Jamaat cabinet approved the then Flood Action Plan in which Tipaimukh affairs were also included. Now they are so vocal about the Tipaimukh construction, but why they did not do anything during their tenure regarding construction of Tipaimukh Dam?” the Prime Minister questioned.
She said present Finance Minister Dr AMA Muhith and former Foreign Minister late Abdus Samad Azad, both Awami League leaders, first brought the issue of Tipaimukh dam to people’s notice.
“But one of their (BNP-Jamaat Alliance) ministers had said that any dam on Tipaimukh will not harm Bangladesh,” she said.
To another question on BNP-Jamaat’ anti-India campaign, the Prime Minister said nothing can be achieved through quarrelling rather mutual understanding and consensus is the only way which can ensure benefits of all in the South Asian region.
Sheikh Hasina described poverty as the biggest enemy of South Asia and emphasized collective efforts to remove poverty completely from the region.
Asked why Bangladesh could not conclude the much-expected Teesta Water-sharing Treaty during her visit, the Prime Minister said its responsibility goes to the BNP-Jamaat alliance. “A big issue like this needs much time to be settled. Then, why the BNP government didn’t take effective steps to advance the process of Teesta treaty?”
She said the BNP-Jamaat alliance did not expedite people’s development rather it had stopped some 99 development projects taken up by the past Awami League government.
About the BNP-Jamaat smear campaign that through the bilateral agreements with India the present government has pushed the country’s independence and sovereignty under threat, the Prime Minister said when the last Awami League government signed the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Treaty in 1997, BNP and its allies had said that India would occupy Bangladesh territories up to Feni district.
“But the reality is that India did not occupy our land and she (Khaleda Zia) becomes parliament member from a constituency in the Feni district,” she told the journalists.
Asked about the BNP statement that Sheikh Hasina’s India visit was ‘100- percent unsuccessful’, the Prime Minister quoted some lines from a poem of Rabindranath Tagore and said: “I wanted to be victorious and I won.”
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