73rd founding anniv of AL today

Bangladesh Awami League, one of the country’s oldest political parties, has drawn up an elaborate programme to celebrate its 73rd founding anniversary today.

The anniversary programme will begin with hoisting the national and party flags atop all party offices, including the central office, with the sunrise.

Later, glowing tributes will be paid to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on a small scale by placing wreaths at his portrait on the premises of Bangabandhu Bhaban in Dhanmondi at 8:00am.

Besides, a delegation of Awami League Central Working Committee led by Presidium member Lt Col (retd) Muhammad Faruq Khan will place wreaths at the mausoleum of Bangabandhu at Tungipara in Gopalganj at 10:30am. The delegation will include ALCWC members Iqbal Hossain Apu, MP, and Syed Abdul Awal Shamim.

A discussion will be held at the party’s central office in the city’s Bangabandhu Avenue at 10.30 am on the day. Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will virtually chair the discussion through videoconferencing from Ganabhaban.

On June 23 in 1949, a new political party named Awami Muslim League was formed from a meeting of the supporters of Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy at the Rose Garden situated in KM Das Lane, Old Dhaka.

Coming out from Muslim League, progressive leaders and activists later formed the Awami Muslim League.

It was the first opposition party in the then East Bengal (later renamed as East Pakistan).

Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Haq of Tangail became the party’s President and General Secretary respectively while Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was made Joint Secretary from the jail.

In a process of secularisation, the word “Muslim” was later dropped from the name of the party.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman came to the leadership of Awami League through 1966 council session.

Later, he became the unparalleled leader of Bangalee nation and architect of independent Bangladesh and Father of the Nation.

Awami League is not only the country’s oldest and biggest political party, rather it is the pioneer of democratic and non-communal spirit of this soil.

From the very beginning, Awami League has been leading the socio-political trend of the country amid different struggles and movements in the seven decades.

After the Liberation War, the party’s leader Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman began to build Bangladesh as a non-communal country.

Following the footprints of her father’s ideology, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is taking ahead the country in an indomitable speed towards massive development and progress.

Awami League became leaderless after the assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family members on August 15, 1975 and killing of four national leaders inside the Dhaka Central Jail on November 3 in the same year.

Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina took the helm of Awami League after returning to the country in 1981.

She again united the party. She has been leading the party for three decades and formed the government four times side by side with waging different democratic movements.