Ruling Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader on Friday said that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is involved in a serious conspiracy to destabilise the market system in the name of boycotting Indian products.
However, the people of the country will not respond to their call, he said, according to a report of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha.
Quader, also the road transport and bridges minister, came up with the remarks while addressing a press conference at the AL president’s Dhanmondi political office in Dhaka on Friday.
He said that BNP’s plot to destroy relations with India is the manifestation of the mental weakness of the leaders of that party.
Their call for boycotting Indian goods will not affect the relations prevailing between the two countries. The country’s people will boycott those who have called for the boycott of Indian products, he said.
The AL general secretary said that when a party becomes radicalised it also becomes bankrupt and only for them it is possible to talk about boycotting its neighbouring country by violating diplomatic norms.
‘The majority of our essential products come from India. The cost of imports from distant countries is high. So, the plot to destroy our relations with India is the manifestation of BNP’s mental disorder. They are paying a lot for not joining the last general elections,’ he said.
Quader also said that while a senior BNP leader is seeking the cooperation of a friendly neighbour to save Bangladesh’s democracy, a junior leader of BNP is calling on to boycott Indian products.
‘In fact, the BNP’s politics is chaotic and messy. Now they do not understand whom they want to please. Which way will BNP actually go? They are now pathless like the wanderers and their words are baffling,’ he said.
Quader said communal politics has been going on in the name of opposing India since the Pakistan era, while today’s call for boycotting Indian goods is an integral part of that.
Meanwhile, BNP chairperson’s advisory council member, Zainul Abdin Farroque, said on Friday that the January 7 general election of Bangladesh was undemocratic and unacceptable to the people who expected proper support from India.
‘We can see that there is a boycott of Indian products by the people of Bangladesh through various social media campaigns due to the anti-people stance of India in the election,’ he said.
He came up with the remarks while talking to journalists after paying tribute to BNP founder Ziaur Rahman’s grave at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the capital, marking the 37th founding anniversary of Zia Parishad, a pro-BNP organisation.
Farroque said, ‘Our party spokesperson, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, said that we have expressed our solidarity with the programme of boycott of Indian products. Even today, on the 37th founding day of the Zia Parishad, we express our solidarity with this programme.’
‘AL general secretary talks a lot at times. We don’t want to answer his words because cases are filed when we reply him,’ he added.
Earlier on Wednesday at a press conference at the BNP central office in Naya Paltan, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi threw away his Indian shawl to express the party’s support for the boycott of Indian products.
In an Iftar programme arranged by the Jatiotabadi Nobin Dol at a restaurant in the capital’s Segunbagicha, he also said that if the democratic government of India supports the undemocratic and unelected government of Bangladesh, then how will the people of Bangladesh accept Indian products? So the boycott is a must,’ he added.
New Age
