Awami League MP Shubid Ali denies calling Ziaur Rahman Bangladesh’s ‘first president’

Awami League MP Shubid Ali Bhuiyan has dismissed the allegation brought by more than one lawmaker of calling Ziaur Rahman Bangladesh’s first president in a meeting of a parliamentary panel.

Amidst intense criticism over the issue, Shubid Ali called an ‘urgent’ news conference at the media centre of Parliament building on Thursday afternoon.

“I will definitely step down from politics if someone can prove that I have called Ziaur Rahman the first president,” he said.

A page of Shubid Ali Bhuiyan's book ' Muktijuddhe Noy Mas'

In a meeting of parliamentary standing committee on public undertakings on Wednesday, Shubid said the BNP’s founder ‘Zia was the first president of Bangladesh’, more than one MP who attended the meeting confirmed bdnews24.com.

The panel’s chief former deputy speaker Shawkat Ali admitted that the MPs had heated arguments with Shubid over the issue in the meeting.

A committee member, Mohibur Rahman Manik, said Wednesday’s meeting was on the University Grants Commission.

“I told the UGC chairman that the commission can seek explanation for calling Ziaur Rahman the first president of Bangladesh in Dhaka University’s founding anniversary souvenir because the education minister says his ministry cannot interfere in an autonomous institution,” Manik told bdnews24.com.

“At this stage of the discussion, before the UGC chairman could respond, Shubid Ali said ‘Zia is the first president of Bangladesh and he (Shubid) has also written it in his book’,” Manik said.

“Then I asked ‘what does it mean when you (Shubid) bring up a settled issue which the BNP raises for debate',” he said.

Shubid on Thursday said he only told the parliamentary panel meeting that Zia had described himself as the president while reading out the proclamation of Bangladesh’s independence at Kalurghat Radio Station first, a mistake which was corrected later.

The ruling MP also said he wrote about the matter in his book on Liberation War, ‘Muktijuddhe Noy Mas’.

3rd, 2nd, 1st Bangla news mail bdnews24.com (18-08-2016)

“The fact is that Ziaur Rahman had mistakenly said in his radio address - ‘a declaration by head of state’. Then Mr MR Khan (Abul Kashem Khan) corrected him...He was supposed to say something but he said something else. It was not intentional. It’s there in my book too,” Shubid said.    
 
In an interview with bdnews24.com in 2010, Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra founder late Belal Mohammad did not say anything regarding Zia calling himself the president.
 
Shubid claimed the media reports on the matter were ‘intentional’, ‘false’ and ‘imaginary’.
 
bdnews24.com called him up on his phone several times on Wednesday for his comment, but he did not take them.
 
On Thursday, when the reporters told him that it was the MPs in the meeting who had brought the allegation, Shubid said, “I don’t know anything about what someone else has said.”
 
“I am very surprised. What can I say? The one who has done it has done it without understanding it,” he said.   
 
Shubid, now the chief of the parliamentary standing committee on defence ministry, was the Principal Staff Officer (PSO) at the Armed Forces Division at the Prime Minister's Office from 1991 to 1996 when Zia’s wife BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was prime minister. 
 
He had fought the Liberation War under Zia’s command.
 
After retirement, he was denied BNP nomination for 2001 election and later fought the polls as an independent candidate but lost.
 
Shubid managed an Awami League ticket in 2008 and defeated top BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain to become an MP.

Shubid read out a prepared statement.
 
“An honourable MP asked me whether I wanted to say that Zia was the first president. In reply, I asked him whether Zia himself had claimed he was the first president in his lifetime.”
 
“It’s a political statement of the BNP. Zia never made the claim,” he said.
 
“I want to say it without any ambiguity that I never called Ziaur Rahman the first president. No such quote was there in any stage of my speech,” Shubid said.
 
“Why should I call Zia the first president? How can Ziaur Rahman be the first president. The government was not even formed then,” he said, responding to another question.
 
Asked if he would initiate any action for ‘publishing false report’, he said, “Truth shall prevail, no matter what someone says. I don’t know what someone said about me. I can’t say it without knowing about it.
 
“If the media have published it, they have done it without having any knowledge of it. But I am not going to take any action. You’ll have to hear many things if you do politics,” he said.
 
The Awami League MP said the 'debate' has ‘insulted’ his party and thrown it into ‘controversy’, handing the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami a ‘false issue’.