PM's speech 'full of self-gratification', BNP says

The BNP says it is 'frustrated' about the prime minister's address to the nation because it contains no direction for 'political consensus' to overcome 'crisis'.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 12 Jan 2017, 07:48 PM
Updated : 12 Jan 2017, 07:48 PM

"This speech of the prime minister is totally conventional, and self-gratifying and self-congratulatory," BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said on Thursday in reaction to Sheikh Hasina's speech.

The prime minister, in her televised address to the nation in the evening to mark three years of her government, criticised the BNP, which has been in anti-government movement after boycotting the 2014 parliamentary elections.

She said the next general elections will be held only after completion of the current government's tenure.

She expressed the hope that all the parties will take part in the elections to be overseen by the Election Commission to be formed through the ongoing talks between the parties and the president.

The BNP has been saying no election with a partisan government in power can be impartial.

After the prime minister's speech, Mirza Fakhrul told the media at the party chief's Gulshan office, "Everyone hoped that she (Hasina) would hint at a political consensus in order to restore democracy through fair polls.

"As it was not in her speech, the address has failed to fulfil the demand of the time. I want to say that the address has frustrated the people and us," he said.

The BNP claims the government, formed with half the MPs elected uncontested and amid the boycott of several parties, has no legitimacy. The party says the country is experiencing a political crisis now.

"The lack of government's legitimacy and moral authority is the main crisis in the country now, but she (Hasina) she avoided that issue," Mirza Fakhrul said.

According to him, the list of development works given by the prime minister in her speech was full of 'mistakes, and baseless and false information'.

"Every government, legal and illegal, has to continue some work. But providing the list of the work as a picture of national development would only frustrate the people, we think," he said.

"The entire election system has been destroyed; corruption, looting are taking place in a big way.

“The banks and the share market have been looted; there is no security, justice and rule of law; the quality of education has dropped;

“Income gap has increased; textbooks are full of errors; enforced disappearance, murder, abduction, child murder, rape have become daily events.

"But the prime minister has avoided everything tactfully," Mirza Fakhrul added.

He also said the BNP would react officially after analysing Hasina's speech in a day or two.