Don't make Siddique remarks a political issue, warns Suranjit

Senior Awami League leader Suranjit Sengupta has said his party will not watch from the sidelines if anyone tries to gain political mileage over Minister Abdul Latif Siddique’s remarks against Hajj.

He said on Wednesday whatever Siddique, the Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in New York was his own version, not of the party.

File Photo

“That’s why there is no scope to make a political issue over it. The Awami League will not be sitting idle if anyone tries to fish in troubled waters by making it a political issue,” he said.

Sengupta was speaking at a discussion organised by Bangabandhu Academy at the Institute of Diploma Engineers auditorium.

He sounded the warning as the BNP announced programmes to mount pressure on the government to sack Siddique from the Cabinet and Parliament.

The minister drew flak after he said at a programme in New York on Sunday that he was against Hajj and Tablig along with Jamaat-e-Islami

“So much manpower is wasted over Hajj. Two million people are now in Saudi Arabia for Hajj. They have no work or role in production. They only eat and go abroad using the country’s money,” Siddique was heard saying in a video posed on Facebook.

BNP’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the 20-Party Alliance would go for agitations after Durga Puja and Eid-ul-Azha unless Siddique was removed.

Islamist parties already announced daylong shutdown for Oct 25 demanding his arrest.

Suranjit said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would decide on Siddique’s removal once she was back from abroad.

He urged all not to go overboard on the matter.