She rebukes city leaders for their failures in movement
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia on Monday night decided to form the new committee of the Dhaka city BNP unit through holding its council.
The Dhaka city unit council will be followed by the councils of all the ward and thana units of the party, and the local unit councils will be held within a month, said Abdus Salam, Dhaka city unit BNP member secretary, at a press briefing.
The press briefing was held after Khaleda Zia’s closed-door meeting with unit leaders at her Gulshan office.
The party chief sat at the meeting with Dhaka city BNP unit leaders at 8:55pm, which ended around 10:40pm.
The organisational activities of the current city committee, the role of its leaders and its different units, their failure to intensify the pre-election movement, reasons behind the failure, future action plans also came up for discussions at the meeting.
“The party chairperson will entrust some leaders with the job of forming an effective committee of the Dhaka city unit. Each of the ward and thana committees will be formed within a month under their supervision. Then the new city committee will be formed through another council,” Salam told journalists.
The present convening committee of the city unit will continue its regular activities until the new committee is formed, he said.
“We’ve elaborately discussed many things, including our failures in the pre-election movement, why we couldn’t play an active role in the streets. We also regretted it at the meeting,” Salam said.
He said the chairperson will take every necessary step to make the city unit stronger. “We also bestowed upon her all the responsibilities to make the unit more vibrant.”
MA Hannan, member secretary of Shahbagh thana BNP unit, told UNB that
Khaleda Zia rebuked the city unit leaders at the meeting for their failure to make the pre-election movement a success in the capital.
“Addressing the meeting, some city leaders confessed that they failed to perform their duty properly in the face of police actions and repressive acts by the government and ruling party cadres,” he added.
In response, Khaleda said, “You people were never active and in the streets. Police were not so aggressive when I was forced out from my cantonment house, even then you didn’t take to the stresses in protest against it. You failed to make the movement a success,” Haji Yousuf, president of Mohammadpur thana unit Jubo Dal, quoted annoyed Khaleda as telling the meeting.
Khaleda lambasted Salam as he told her to forgive them for their failure in the movement and form a fresh committee with the existing city leaders. “Who are you (Salam) to advise me? You constituted all pocket committees. Now I’ll deicide what to do. As you confessed to your failure, I’ll form a fresh committee with dedicated, honest, sincere and active leaders,” Yousuf further quoted Khaleda as saying.
As some city leaders at the meeting with Khaleda suggested splitting the party’s city unit into two — north and south — considering the city’s growing population, Khaleda told them that the decision in this regard will be taken at the party’s national standing committee’s meeting, Yousuf added.
BNP standing committee members RA Gani and Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, President of Mohila Dal Nuri Ara Safa and general secretary Shirin Sultana, among others, joined the meeting.
Abdus Salam and other city unit leaders, including Kazi Abul Bashar, Shamsul Huda, MA Kaiyum, SA Khaleque, Md Sahabuddin, Ali Asgar Matabbar, Abdul Majid, Abu Sayed Khan Khokan, Sajjad Zahir, Abdul Latif, Abdul Alim Naki, Munshi Bazlul Basit Anju and Nurjahan Mahbub attended the meeting.
Khaleda formed the existing Dhaka city BNP unit convening committee on March 14, 2011 with Sadek Hossain Khoka as its convener and Abdus Salam member secretary.
The incumbent 11-member convening committee failed to form full-fledged committees for thana and ward units under the city with holding election within six months as suggested by the party high command in 2011.
Source: UNB Connect
