BNP leaders should resign over anti-govt agitation failure: Quader

All leaders and activists of the BNP should leave their party as their eight-year-long anti-government movement has failed, says the Awami League general secretary.

"The BNP asks us to step aside (from government) while they couldn't even heat up the streets for eight minutes in the last eight years," said Obaidul Quader on Friday at an event at the Bangla Academy.

"For this failure, all of you (BNP leaders and activists) from top to bottom should simply quit."

The road transport minister's remarks came a day after BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the government should resign from government for its failures.

Mira Fakhrul on Thursday referred to the Appellate Division's observation in the full verdict that annulled the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. He had said any government in a 'civilised and democratic' country would have stepped down after that ruling.

In response, Quader sarcastically said he 'understood Fakhrul's pain'. "Your calls for movement bear no fruit. No one knows when that will happen while Eids went by and months passed. But you keep making announcements."

BNP leaders, before last Ramadan, had said that party chief Khaleda Zia would announce a fresh movement after the Eid-ul-Fitr.

But Khaleda went to London on Jul 15 for medical treatment. Since then, she has been living at her son Tarique Rahman's home at Kingston.

Hinting at her stay there, Quader said, "She is on the banks of River Thames for two months taking her movement along. When will the movement happen, this year or next? Will it happen after this Eid or the next Eid?"

The BNP is 'gradually losing its influence', he remarked. "No one knows when BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Senior Vice Chairperson Tarique Rahman will return to the country."

Addressing Fakhrul, the ruling party leader said, "The Awami League is not a party that can be tamed once it takes one or two hits. The Awami League is the government's foundation, Sheikh Hasina's foundation for the masses. The Awami League's foundation is the strongest."