People should know what we talked about: PM

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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina talking with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia over phone Saturday evening. Photo: Prime Minister’s Office

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the countrymen should know the full content of the conversation between her and the opposition leader Khaleda Zia.

The premier’s comment came amid a countrywide debate whether it was right to making public the two political leaders’ much-talked-about conversation on Saturday evening.

The two leaders talked for 36 minutes as the whole nation was expecting that they would initiate a dialogue to break the political standoff centring an election-time government.

Commenting on the conversation, Hasina said she had to hear many “humiliating” and “irrelevant” words from her arch rival.

“I could have replied to her but did not react for sake of the welfare of the countrymen,” she said while talking to the lawmakers from different constituencies and district unit presidents and general secretaries of AL of Dhaka, Manikganj, Narayanganj and Gazipur.

She expressed her gratitude to the Almighty Allah for what she said giving her patience to hear “harsh” words from Khaleda.

Addressing a post-hartal press conference at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office yesterday, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said disclosure of the conversation between the PM and the opposition leader to the media was a departure from “political decency” and was “politically motivated”.

He blamed the government for this.

Reacting to the 60-hour opposition shutdown that ended on Tuesday, the PM said 20 lives could have been saved had Khaleda Zia withdrawn the shutdown responding to her request.

I offered her (Khaleda Zia) to sit for a dialogue and withdraw the hartal. But she refused. What did she gain from hartal?

“What did she gain from the loss of these 20 lives (who were killed during the hartal violence)?” Hasina asked.

Source: The Daily Star