The ruling Awami League on Saturday began its 20th national conference and council session that would expand the central working committee and presidium amending the party constitution and elect new leadership for the next three years.
Party president Sheikh Hasina, also the prime minister, inaugurated the conference at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka around 10:15am.
Sheikh Hasina arrived in the venue around 10:05am. She then hoisted the national flag while the party general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam hoisted the party flag amid singing of national anthem.
In the two-day council session, party leaders will place obituary reference, general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam will place the report of the general secretary and organising secretaries will place reports of seven divisions.
The party completed all preparation for the conference. It erected a boat-shape stage resembling its election symbol and decorated major streets in Dhaka with large size hoarding carrying picture of Sheikh Hasina, country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also a former president of the party, and lightings.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police declared different roads leading to Suhrawardy Udyan off limits to traffic for the two days.
Almost all the 6,570 councillors from 73 organisational districts reached Dhaka by Friday to join the conference.
As per the party constitution, the president, presidium members, general secretary, departmental secretaries and treasurer will be elected by the triennial council from among the councillors.
The immediate past council session was held on December 29, 2012, when Hasina, was re-elected party president for the seventh term in a row and incumbent general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam retained the post for a second term.
The tenure of the incumbent committee expired on December 29, 2015 and the working committee on January 9, 2016 extended its tenure by six months and decided to hold the council session on March 28, but failed.
On March 20, the working committee rescheduled the council session for July 10-11 but deferred it again.
The first council session the Awami Muslim League was held in June 23-24, 1949 with Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani as president and Shamsul Haq of Tangail as general secretary. The word ‘Muslim’ was dropped from its name in 1955.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was made general secretary of the party in 1953 and president in 1966.
For the inaugural session of the conference, the AL has invited Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia, leaders of different political parties excluding the Jamaat-e-Islami, writers, poets, eminent citizens, diplomats, heads of religious institutes, intellectuals, ministers and state ministers and party lawmakers.
Over 50 delegates from political parties abroad are expected to join the inaugural session.
Source: New Age