AL ruined country’s political structure: Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Monday alleged that the current Awami League government has destroyed the political structure of the country by revoking the caretaker government system.

"Awami League has destroyed the political structure that we established in 1991 through many setbacks and struggles. As per that political structure, the government would be formed through a democratic election," he said.

Speaking at a discussion, the BNP leader said Awami League enforced hartal for 173 days with a demand for the introduction of the caretaker government. "Jatiya Party and Jamaat were with them.

He said the then BNP government in 1996 introduced the caretaker government system and four credible and acceptable elections were held under it. "But when they (AL) could understand that people would not vote for them for their misdeeds from 2009-2011, they annulled the caretaker government system with the help of Justice Khairul Haque."

Later, he said the government has politicised the judiciary which now dictates what the political structure of the country will be. "Thus they destroyed our political structure."

Ziaur Rahman Foundation arranged the programme at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, marking its 23rd founding anniversary

Fakhrul said the government has also destroyed the country's economic structure through widespread looting and stealing. "Nothing is happening here, except theft. The main motive behind all mega projects is theft. In this way, they're taking entire Bangladesh towards destruction. "We must free Bangladesh again from misrule and restore people's rights"

He said the ruling party was boasting for a long time that the country has achieved self-sufficiency in electricity with a power generation capacity of about 25,000 MW.

"But we're now facing load shedding. Their energy adviser and my teacher Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury said how will we provide electricity as we don't have money? But they had long been saying there was no crisis of money with $42 billion reserves. Where has that money gone?

The BNP leader said Tawfiq-e-Elahi at a programme of businessmen helplessly admitted that they won't be able to provide power during the day and it will be given only at night. "This is an example of their development and this is how Bangladesh has become a role model for development.

Fakhrul alleged that Awami League has repeatedly harmed Bangladesh and they are again ruining the country by eliminating democracy and snatching people's rights.

He said people now cannot freely express their opinions due to the digital security act and other repressive laws. "We started a movement to overcome such a situation.”