HPM Sheikh Hasina welcomes new political alliance

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today welcomed the emergence of a political alliance ahead of the upcoming elections expecting it to be contested by all every political parties. “I welcome their unity as opponents of Awami League should have a strong platform,” she told a press conference referring to the newly formed grouping under the leadership of Dr Badrudowza Chowdhury, Dr Kamal Hossain and others.

Sheikh Hasina, also the president of Awami League, added that her party “wants a good opposition alliance so that we can contest in the election”.

The premier said the top figures of the new alliance in the past hatched designs against the incumbent government but “yet we welcome their initiative” against a backdrop of the country’s two-party system.

“We (however) want that their unity will not be aimed to foil the election, but jointly contest in the polls,” she said.

The press conference was held at the premier’s Gonobhabna residence a day after her return from Nepal attending the 4th BIMSTEC Summit while the issues of electronic voting machine (EVM), imprisonment BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and Rohingyas prominently featured the question-answer session.

Sheikh Hasina favoured limited use” of EVM in the next general elections as the system still required more experiments before its nationwide introduction for voting.

But, she said, BNP’s was entirely opposed to the EVM use as it would bury scopes to stuff ballot boxed with false ballot paper as per their design.

Sheikh Hasina said political parties, which were habituated in manipulating votes now appeared loud against polls rigging.

“The next elections undoubtedly will be free and fair as we don’t do politics to snatch peoples voting rights . . . we will retain power if people give us vote, otherwise not (and) I’m saying this from my belief,” Sheikh Hasina said.

The premier said nobody in the country was powerful enough to foil the election as the process was the only means to take forward the country “and people now know it well that their development is possible under the democratic system alone”.

She, however, said conspiracy appeared to be a phenomenon in Bangladesh where Father of the Nation was killed and “repeated attempts are being made on my life as well”.

Sheikh Hasina said a vested quarter is always active to push the country to undemocratic rule. In that case they get importance and opportunity to enjoy a slice of the state power.

She said this quarter launched a campaign to foil the 2014 general elections as a number of candidates were elected unopposed.

But she recalled that one of the proponents of that campaign Dr. Kamal Hossain himself was elected unopposed from a constituency which was left by Bangabandhu.

Replying to a question the prime minister said she agreed with an opinion which demands the conspirators of Bangabandhu killing be exposed to trial along with the killers.

She said many studies and researches were carried out abroad on the August 15 carnage and came out with untold findings and one day the reports of the researches would be revealed.