HPM Sheikh Hasina slams Khaleda Zia over Padma Bridge remarks

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has compared the comments of Khaleda Zia about the Padma Bridge with the raving of a mad.

"The honourable speaker, I think it's good to accept it as the delirium of a mad," she said replying to a supplementary raised by Awami League lawmaker Begum Fazilatunnesa Bappi in her question answer session.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at a discussion at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB) on January 2 said that the under construction multipurpose Padma Bridge is risky to get on as it is being constructed of patchwork.

"The Padma Bridge won't be constructed during the Awami League's rule. Even, if they somehow construct the bridge, please don't get on it as there'll be huge risk," Khaleda told the discussion.

Sheikh Hasina said a bridge is constructed through joining its different parts and no bridge is built without it. "So I cannot understand about patchwork what Khaleda Zia wanted to say," she said.

"However, there is a common word in the country -- "Pagole ki na koy and Chhagole ki na khai," she said.

The Leader of the House said it's better for anybody not to give much attention to the word of a mad because any healthy person cannot utter such a word.

After coming to power for the second time in 2009, she said, the Awami League government took initiatives for constructing the Padma Bridge.

"At the beginning we suffered a stumble as the World Bank brought an allegation of corruption. But we challenged it saying there was no graft in it and it has been proved as a Canadian court also said no corruption happened," she said.

The prime minister said the government launched the work of the mega project through its own funding as the World Bank withdrew financing.

"We undertook the mega project for the development of communication system of South Bengal," she said, adding if communication system is developed economic activities will be accelerated and poverty will be reduced.

She said with the completion of the bridge the GDP will be increased by one percent.

Sheikh Hasina said when the work of the bridge is underway, at that time Khaleda Zia urged the party men not to get on it.

"I don't know whether the BNP leaders and workers will get on the bridge or not. If they do then the people of the area can keep watch that actually they get on the bridge or move through it," she said.