The New Nation - Internet Edition

Special Correspondent

BNP Chairperson and Leader of the Opposition Begum Khaleda Zia said yesterday that they would return to the parliament to speak for the people. At the same time BNP will also take to the street to protect the democratic rights and interests of the people.

She made the disclosure in response to the request made by editors and senior journalists in a views exchange programme held at a Gulshan hotel in the city on Monday.

A number of editors called for a quick return to parliament, and suggested hartals and street violence be discarded as means of political protest.

Khaleda Zia in reply called upon the journalists to play their democratic role since the media is also a part of democratic system in a society. She sought cooperation from the media in protecting the independence and sovereignty of country and the interest of the nation.

She referred to "persecution of journalists", specifically mentioning Amar Desh and cases filed against the Bangla paper's editor. Awami League's past record shows that they cannot tolerate freedom of the media.

"Going back to parliament alone will not solve the problem, media has to be allowed to play its role," she said, responding to the editors' comments.

The ruling party doesn't want us to return to parliament. Once we announced (that we'd go back) they started making provocative statements, filthy character assassination and un-parliamentary words against the opposition.

They themselves called the parliament a 'fish market', 'zoo' and also mentioned the Speaker as a personal staff," Begum Zia pointed out saying that the ruling party was pursuing the political suppression like what the previous unconstitutional and emergency government of Fakhruddin had done.

She said that BNP was aware of the design of emergency government and the Election Commission that favoured Awami League to go to power. It was why BNP did not want to go to the election under an emergency rule.

"Since we opposed to endorse the misdeeds of emergency rules, we were not allowed to win", she said adding that BNP from the very beginning had extended hands of cooperation to the new government since it believed that an elected government was better than the illegitimate emergency government.

She alleged that the ruling party had made lofty promises to win the elections but they could not fulfill any of their pledges. She referred to Awami League's failure in keeping the price of essential commodities within the capacity of common people, provide fertilizer free of cost and even to provide one job in a family. Instead of concentrating on public demands, the ruling party is rather interested to fulfill the pledges they made with the foreign powers.

On agreements with India, she said Awami League should make the secret deals public and discuss it in the parliament. Begum Zia said BNP had put forward some suggestions for the Prime Minister before her visit to India but they did not discuss anything with BNP. Even they did not discuss the agreements in the parliament.

Responding to question of hartal and street programmes, BNP Chairperson said that they did not enforce any hartal in the country in the last one year. They even refrained from taking to the street.

But the ruling party people had created a lot of law and order by engaging themselves in intra-fighting over tender business, capturing the educational institutions and also observed hartals. She referred to shut down programmes in Kishoreganj, all due to ruling party, nothing doing with opposition.

On campus issue, Begum Zia said that all the pro-BNP students are ousted from the dormitories while the academic atmosphere is jeopardised due to infighting in ruling party and the partisan administration.

She said people's suffering had reached its height due to price hike of the daily essentials, politicisation of the administration and overall misrule by an elected government.

"People wants BNP to stand beside them and raise voice against all the suppression", BNP Chairperson said adding that BNP cannot remain unconcerned about people's sufferings for long. "We will go to the parliament and also take to the street to protect the interest of the people," she asserted.

Those who spoke on the occasion included veteran journalist ABM Musa, The Independent Editor Mahbubul Alam, Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam, Daily Sangram Editor Abul Asad, Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman, Ataus Samad, New Age Editor Nurul Kabir, DUJ President Abdus Shaheed and Mahmud Shafiq.

BNP Standing Committee members and other central leaders also were present at the meeting.