Khaleda celebrates birthday

Flocked by her party leaders and activists, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has cut a cake to celebrate her birthday on the first hour of August 15 amid criticisms in the political circle.

The Awami League had urged her to not celebrate birthday on a day of mourning for Bangladesh’s fallen independence hero, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The architect of Bangladesh was assassinated with much of his family this day in 1975 by a group of disgruntled military officers.

But responding to that call, senior BNP leader Gayeshwar Chnadra Roy has said that ‘snide remarks’ by ruling party leaders have ‘forced’ their party to observe this birthday with such vigour.

Since 1991, when she first became Prime Minister, the BNP chief has been celebrating Aug 15 as her ‘official birthday’.

She has been roundly criticised for doing that, but that has not stopped Khaleda from celebrating her ‘birthday’ on Aug 15.

Khaleda cut the 50-pound cake at 12:01am at her Gulshan office as party leaders and activists wished her ‘Happy Birthday’.

BNP’s Dhaka metropolitan unit and the party’s student wing Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal also brought two more cakes.

Khaleda, after the first cake, cut those two too. She then ordered the party leaders to distribute the cakes among the students of orphanages after receiving flowers from party supporters at her office’s gate.

As he was cutting the cakes, she was accompanied by senior and central party leaders including acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee members Jamiruddin Sircar, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdul Moyen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan and other well wishers.

Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, Swecchasebak Dal, Mohila Dal and Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha will cut another cake on Friday morning at the BNP’s Naya Paltan headquarters to mark her birthday.

According to BNP, Khaleda stepped into 69 this year.

But Khaleda's birthday has always been a matter of contention.

Her latest passport says she was born in 1946, but on Thursday a senior BNP leader proclaimed that her birth year was 1945.

Several books on her life and a Banglapedia entry say she was born in 1945.

Khaleda's father Iskandar Majumder, originally from Feni, was a resident of Dinajpur. Khaleda was born there. Her mother was Tayeba Majumder.

Khaleda married Ziaur Rahman, then a captain of the Pakistani army, in August 1960. Zia fought as a sector commander in the 1971 Liberation War.

But after the 1975 coup and several that followed, Ziaur Rahman managed to capture power and emerge as the country's first military dictator.

After the assassination of Zia, then the president, in May 1981, Khaleda, who was a housewife until then, stepped into politics.

She began as the party's vice chairman and in 1984 became chairperson.

Khaleda played a strong role in the movement against military dictator Ershad. Her role was crucial in creating a popular base for BNP, a party that was born in the cantonment.

The party won the 1991 elections and Khaleda became the first female prime minister of Bangladesh. She was also prime minister for a brief period after a controversial election in February 1996.

In 2001, BNP-led four-party alliance won the election and she once again became the prime minister. In 2008 elections she became the opposition leader in Parliament.

When her party boycotted the Jan 5 elections this year, Khaleda lost her seat in Parliament for the first time in 24 years, thus losing her state protocol.