TDS Desk:

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman said his party wants to restore caretaker government (CG) system in the Constitution for guaranteeing free and fair elections.

“We want to restore caretaker government system in the Constitution for reestablishing people’s voting rights,” he told a virtual view-exchange meeting with the party’s leaders and workers in Khulna division.

The meeting was arranged as part of the BNP’s ongoing view-exchange meetings with the party’s leaders and workers at grassroots.

Tarique Rahman said the ownership of Bangladesh belongs to the people of this country and it is their fair democratic right to elect their representatives through exercising their voting rights freely, BNP Chairperson’s Press Wing Officer Shamsuddin Didar told that.

BNP incorporated the caretaker government system instead of party government in the Constitution in 1996 to ensure free and fair elections and the people’s right to vote, he said.

But the autocratic Hasina government scrapped the CG system from the Constitution and deprived the people of voting rights in three national elections in order to deprive the people from their voting rights and monopolize the power, said the BNP acting chairman.

Tarique Rahman said BNP does politics aimed at fulfilling the aspirations of the country’s common people.

Priorities of BNP’s politics are to ensure people’s safety, freedom of speech and right to do trade and business in peace, employment for youths, dignity and safety of women and ensure equal state rights for all regardless of religion, caste, creed, group, plain land and hill people, establish rule of law, bring balance among judiciary, legislative and executive branches, ensure health services for all, fair price of agricultural products and ensure the country’s independence and sovereignty, he added.

Being emotion-choked, Tarique Rahman said the countrymen witnessed how disgracefully and unfairly Deshnetri Begum Khaleda Zia was evicted from the house where Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman lived, the house where every inch of his (Tarique Rahman’s) and his brother’s childhood memories are intertwined, the house from where his mother (Begum Khaleda Zia) began her household and which is the testimony of the pain of her widowhood.

The BNP Acting Chairman said his only brother had to die without getting treatment due to gross negligence and similarly lakhs of leaders and activists of the grassroots of the party had to be victims of cases and attacks and live inhumane life either in prison or in hiding leaving their families, losing their business and jobs and countless leaders and activists sacrificed their lives relentlessly loving the country with the dream of establishing democracy.

Expressing gratitude to leaders and workers at grassroots, he said as they (party men) do not believe in vengeance like the past, similarly he (Tarique Rahman) and party chief Deshnetri Begum Khaleda Zia also know that the people of the country have been living in confinement in a large prison named Bangladesh for the past 17 years.

“So, now we will have to set an example by responding to all the injustices of the past through fulfilling the expectations of the people of the country, not through malevolence,” he said.

He said BNP has gained the trust and love of the people through waging movement and struggle, making sacrifice and facing exploitation years after years.

It will not be tolerated that the place of trust and expectations of the people gets damaged due to the impetuousness of some derailed members of the party, whoever he or she is, he said.

Pointing at the audience, Tarique Rahman called upon the party men to identify and resist those who tarnish the party’s image.

The party is not only making promise to suspend them (wrongdoers) but also giving order to take legal actions against them, he said.

Expressing profound trust on the leaders and workers at grassroots, the BNP Acting Chairman gave example of one eleven period and said grassroots were the strength of BNP in the party’s crisis period and they stayed engaged with the party with strong unity defying all provocations and repressions.

If the leaders and workers at grassroots stay with the party, it will be possible to tackle any situation and in the same way, it will be easier for him (Tarique Rahman) to run the party, he said.

He pointed out the main points of the 31-point programme of reforming the state structure to fulfill the expectations of the people and to build the modern Bangladesh of the future and gave directives to reach this message to all the marginal people of the country.

Tarique Rahman urged the party men to remain alert and united for tackling numerous invisible opponents side by side with visible opponent Awami League.

“Ouster of autocrat is only primary victory, actual test is ahead,” he said.

He called upon the party men to pay back the reward of support and love given by the commoners to the party to win in the next test overcoming complacency and all laxity.