Awami League’s Qauder predicts bad days ahead for BNP

The BNP is likely to face the same fate as the Muslim League if it boycotts the next general election, Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader has said.

Cox’s Bazar Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 4 Dec 2017, 11:02 AM
Updated : 4 Dec 2017, 11:02 AM

Quader likened the BNP to the Muslim League to predict the party’s fall from popularity before disappearing altogether from the political scenes.

“The BNP plays on words only. It lacks necessary capital to win the elections,” Quader, also the minister for roads and transports, said at a programme in Cox’s Bazar on Monday.

“With continuous stunts and lies, they have reached a state where they are unaware of the dire consequence lying ahead of them -- that they can end up just like the Muslim League if they do not take part in the polls,” Quader said.

Established in 1906, the Muslim League reached the peak of popularity as a mass-based pressure group in British India. After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, the Muslim League became its dominant political party.

In the elections of 1954, the Muslim League lost power in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and the party lost power in West Pakistan (now Pakistan) soon afterwards. By the late 1960s the party had split into various factions, and by the 1970s it had disappeared altogether.

Quader made the comments on the BNP at an event organised to hand funds for Rohingya refugees to the Cox’s Bazar deputy commissioner at a hotel in the district on Monday.

Referring to the Rohingya issue, he said that government had alternative plans to transfer the refugees to Bhasan Char, a remote island near Hatiya, in case the repatriation process was delayed.

“The process is not so easy.

Bangladesh has so far sheltered more than 700,000 Rohingyas and still around 500 of them are entering the country every day,” he told at the event.

He flagged out how the Rohingya refugees' mass exodus was taking a toll on the environment, nature, economy and tourism in Cox’s Bazar and adding to its social unrest.

He also shed light on progresses made in the CHT Peace Accord.

He said he spoke to Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council. “We will sit with them in a few days.”

“We will discuss the conditions of the treaty that are unimplemented and try to bring solutions through discussions,” said Quader adding that attempts would be made to involve Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the discussions afterwards.