Awami League considers itself the owner of Bangladesh: Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said said the biggest problem of Awami League leaders and workers is that they think they are the sole owners of the country, not the people.

"Awami League considers itself the owner of this country. Nurul Haque Nur was saying by showing the constitution that people are the owners of this country. But they think that this country is owned by only the Awami League, if I say more precisely a person or his [Sheikh Mujib's] family. This is the reality," he said while speaking at a discussion today (23 August).

The BNP leader also said a big shake is needed through a strong struggle to get out of this reality.  "We've been on this struggle… what I want to say again and again is that it won't be possible to remove this monstrous regime without a tsunami-like mass upheaval."

A faction of Gono Odhikar Parishad led by Nurul Haque Nur organised the discussion titled "Protection of Constitutional, Fundamental and Human Rights of Citizens" at Dhaka Reporters' Unity (DRU).

Fakhrul said they united most opposition parties to carry out the movement for the restoration of democracy and people's rights. "It won't work if only political parties get united. People should also get united to topple the government through the movement. There's no alternative to it."

He said their party's only goal is to establish a people's government and parliament by ousting the Awami League government.

The BNP leader called upon the youth to come forward to intensify the ongoing movement and make it a success.

Recalling the role of the youth and the students in different democratic movements in the past, he deplored that the youth and the students are now not that much vocal against injustice and misdeeds of the government.

"It hurts me a lot when I see the youths and students of the universities do not take to the streets and raise their voice when their fellow female student has been harassed…the constitutional and human rights of the people in the state are being taken away, but we don't see a protest against it at Dhaka University or at other universities and they're not taking to the streets," Fakhrul observed.

Even in the 90s, he said the students played the key role in creating the mass uprising and they led the movement against HM Ershad. "Unfortunately, we now don't see such young people and students on the frontline in that way."

The BNP leader accused the ruling party leaders of spearing lies relentlessly to mislead people. "Their (Awami League government) has been in power fully based on lies."

Slamming the ruling party leaders for calling him a big liar, Fakhrul said those who belong to the Awami League do not know the political etiquette as their body language is like that of a terrorist.