Quader warns ex-BCL leaders as they keep protesting over AL subcommittees

Obaidul Quader has run into agitations by former Bangladesh Chhatra League leaders over the Awami League subcommittees for the second day.

Only hours before, the ruling party’s general secretary said on Sunday afternoon that it was ‘celebration, not agitation’ after facing the ire of the ex-BCL leaders at the party chief’s Dhanmondi offices on Saturday.

"(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," he said.

When he came to the Dhanmondi offices hours after speaking to the reporters at the Secretariat, a few hundred angry former leaders of the Awami League’s student affiliate were already at the gate.

As they started to shout, creating a hullabaloo much like that of Saturday, Quader took some of them into his room.

He warned them against agitation before assuring them of meeting their demand for posts in the subcommittees.

Before becoming the general secretary in the party’s national council on Oct 23, 2016, Quader had expressed ire as the number of assistant secretaries in the subcommittee rose to 467 from 66. He had announced to cut the number below 100.

Around one and a half years after the council, the names of the assistant secretaries of the new subcommittees are yet to be announced, but a list containing names in the new subcommittees recently spread on the Facebook.

When AKM Enamul Hoque Shameem, an organising secretary of the party, came to the Dhanmondi offices around 6pm, the protesters raised slogan demanding cancellation of the list.

They claimed the posts were sold to supporters of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, leaving the dedicated ex-BCL leaders out.

Quader called some of them to his room around 8pm.

Speaking to bdnews24.com, Deputy Office Secretary Biplab Barua, who was present there at the time, said Quader again told the former BCL leaders seeking posts that the list put on the Facebook was merely a draft.

“He warned them not to spread any confusion over the issue. The names of the assistant secretaries will be announced after three months following party chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s clearance,” Biplab said.

He said Quader listened to the allegations against some of the names appearing on the list. 

“If anyone continues protesting after today’s warning, they will be considered to have no link with the party,” he quoted Quader as telling the ex-BCL leaders.