Renewing her dialogue offer, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday urged opposition leader Khaleda Zia to join parliament and discuss all issues to resolve the country’s ongoing political impasse shunning the tactic of issuing ultimatums.
“Your all efforts have gone in vain…your 48-hour ultimatum has also failed. So, give up all these tactics…Come and join the upcoming budget session of parliament and discuss all issues to resolve,” the premier said refereeing to Khaleda.
Hasina, who heads the governing Awami League, said this in her opening remarks at a meeting with AL’s grassroots leaders from Manikganj district in her official residence Gono Bhaban in the morning.
The AL president also mentioned that there is no alternative to discussion to resolve problems. “So, sit for dialogue in or outside the parliament for resolving the current political stalemate.”
Hasina called upon the BNP chief to shun violent acts and said the people of the country have already got fed-up seeing mayhems, and they do not want to see such things any more.
The premier said her party has the ability and strength to reply to these violent acts but they do not want to go for any confrontation as they exercise restraint and patience for the sake of the country and its people.
“We want peace, not conflict. So, don’t inflict sufferings on people by calling unnecessary and illogical shutdowns,” she said.
Hasina said she had called upon the opposition leader to sit for a dialogue, but she threw a challenge with a 48-hour ultimatum saying that AL would not find any path to escape. “Now who has lost the path, where is your 48-hour ultimatum?” she questioned.
The prime minister said had there been any other party in power instead of AL that would have given the BNP an appropriate lesson on who to find a path to escape or loses it.
She mentioned that her government through the 15th amendment to the Constitution stopped the path of illegal grabbing of state power in unconstitutional ways to protect the hard-earned democracy.
AL Presidium members Matia Chowdhury and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Joint General Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak and Youth and Sports Secretary Dewan Shafiul Arefin Tutul were, among others, present.
AL organising secretary Ahmad Hossain conducted the views-exchange meeting which was convened as part of a series of meetings with the grassroots leaders and workers initiated by the party at the end of 2011
Source: The Daily Star
