BNP chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia turns ‘70’ on Friday amid a fresh controversy in which year she was actually born.
Various records suggest that Khaleda Zia who was Prime Minister thrice was born on August 15, 1945, though there are lots of debates over her date of birth.
However, her press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan Sohel told UNB on Thursday that her actual birth year is 1946, creating another controversy about her birth year after the birthday.
As Maruf Kamal was informed that newspapers and all other media sites have long been using 1945 as Khaleda’s birth year, he said the media and all others have been using wrong information about it.
According to Banglapedia and well-known encyclopedias wikipedia and Britannica Khaleda Zia was born to Iskandar Majumder, a businessman, and Taiyaba Majumder in Dinajpur district in 1945.
The bio-data Khaleda Zia submitted to the Parliament Secretariat when she was made the opposition leader last suggests that the BNP chief was born on
August 15, 1945.
The controversy over the birthday began in 1991 when Khaleda first celebrated it on August 15 after assuming office as Prime Minister and declared it as her ‘official birthday’.
Despite criticisms by Awami League, BNP and its associate bodies have been celebrating her birthday on August 15 since then.
Awami League leaders have long been claiming that her birthday is Sept 5, 1945 according to her marriage certificate while Aug 19, 1946 as per her first passport. Khaleda herself put the date as Aug 9, 1944 while registering her name for the matriculation exams, they said.
According to sources at BNP, her birthday celebrations will begin at her Gulshan office with the cutting of a cake at the wee hours on Friday.
BNP and its associate bodies have chalked out various programmes to celebrate the birthday in a ‘befitting manner’ while the nation will observe the 39th death anniversary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the National Mourning Day.
BNP’s associate bodies will cut cakes around 10am on Friday at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office to mark the day.
Besides, the party leaders may exchange greetings at the Gulshan office at 8pm, the sources said.
Maruf Kamal said the BNP chief has no special arrangement to celebrate the day as she will observe the day maintaining a low profile. “Khaleda Zia never celebrated her birthday with any special arrangements. She only exchanges greetings with those leaders and activists who come to wish her on the occasion.”
Like ever year she will also exchange greetings if the party men come to wish her and celebrate the day, he added.
But the party high command was learned to have asked its leaders and activists to mark the event in a befitting manner maintaining discipline.
After the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman on May 30, 1981, BNP had gone through turmoil on various occasions. At the party’s critical juncture, Khaleda Zia came forward to save it and became its vice-president in March 1983. She was elected its chairperson and on May 10, 1984 and played a key role during the anti-Ersahd movement.
Khaleda, married with BNP founder Ziaur Rahman in 1960, became the country’s first woman Prime Minister in 1991 as well as the second in the Muslim world after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.
Khaleda, mother of two sons — Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman — ruled the country for over 10 years. Her both sons now live abroad.
Source: UNB
