Quader says uproar ex-BCL leaders created was 'celebration, no agitation'

Obaidul Quader has refuted media reports on agitations over the Awami League subcommittees, saying former Bangladesh Chhatra League leaders had taken out a celebratory procession outside party chief's Dhanmondi offices.

The ruling party’s general secretary also said he was shocked to see the way the news was presented in the media.

"They were celebrating at the time," Quader claimed at a news briefing at his Secretariat office on Sunday.

"They (the media) are calling it a protest procession; that's unfair, that's sad."

On Saturday evening, several hundred leaders and party activists started agitating outside the Awami League chief's Dhanmondi offices when Quader was having a meeting inside.

At one stage, Quader had to come out and assure them of meeting their demands to quell the agitation, according to Central Working Committee member SM Kamal Hossain.

The agitation was to protest against new subcommittees in which, the agitators claimed, the posts were sold leaving the dedicated ex-BCL leaders out.

To calm the agitation, Quader told the party men the news about the committees that came on the Facebook was not true, that none of the assistant secretary posts was confirmed and he would finalise new committees in three months.

"(You) wrote ‘there were agitations; Mr Quader is confined’... but I didn't see anything like that. I was saying my prayers; the door was closed at the time...believe me, I am very saddened (by the report)," Quader told the journalists at the Secretariat. 

"Those who went to see me, they came out and celebrated after I clarified the situation about the sub-committees."

"And you are saying it was an agitation," he wondered.  

"I believe no journalist was present there. They wrote the story from hearsay," he claimed.

"Why would you write a story listening to someone? After the clarification of the Facebook report, they started celebrating. It was a misunderstanding," he continued.

Dominated largely by senior leaders, the subcommittees of assistant secretaries hold out the hope for its former student leaders to find a niche.

In the subcommittees formed after the national council before the last one, the number of assistant secretaries was 66 initially, but the party had to raise it to 467.

Quader, who was a Presidium Member at the time, was unhappy at the rise in the number of subcommittee assistant secretaries.

During a preparatory event for the national council, he had said the number had mushroomed so much that "anyone who you barge against in the party office says he's an assistant secretary. They do not say they are assistant secretaries of a subcommittee".

He had declared that the number of subcommittee assistant secretaries would be limited to 100.