During her media briefing on Sunday, Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina welcomed the move of Gano Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain, Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh President AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury and others to form an alliance, but did not miss the opportunity to sneer at them and their coalition partners.
"We welcome their alliance. Let the unity prevails… this is good.
“There’re two parties in Bangladesh -- Awami League and anti-Awami League. The anti-Awami League people will have to have somewhere to go," she said.
Recently, Dr Kamal, B Chowhdury, Mahmudur Rahman Manna, ASM Abdur Rob and Kader Siddique agreed to forge a national unity ahead of the general election.
"We’ll contest the election. I hope they’ll also take part in the polls in alliance," Hasina said adding there should be an alternative in the country.
She, however, said whether Gano Forum chief Kamal Hossain and those who have sided with him really want an election.
“There’s a section of people in Bangladesh who think they will get a flag (a berth in cabinet), if an unconstitutional and unelected government is installed." she said.
On Hossain’s recent remarks of several Awami League MPs elected unopposed in 2014, Hasina said that the now-Gano Forum chief was elected a lawmaker only once in his life and that too unopposed.
“He contested in the election from a constituency vacated by the Father of the Nation. No one else submitted nomination. He too was an uncontested MP. He says he is one of the persons who drafted the Constitution, but now wants to disregard it,” said the Awami League.
Lauding Kamal Hossain’s move to forge an alliance, Hasina, however, hinted the eminent lawyer can take off anytime.
“There’s one other thing, Kamal Hossain always keeps a plane ticket with him. If he comes up with heated statements like ‘Everything will remain shut from now’, then you have to assume that he is ready to catch a flight with his luggage inside his car. We have seen it when he was with us.”
Last month, Kamal Hossain’s announced that his party Gano Forum is joining the Jukto Front coalition headed by AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury of the Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh.
ASM Rab’s Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-JSD and Mahmudur Rahman Manna’s Nagorik Oikya are also partners in the coalition.
On ex-president Chowdhury, Hasina said, “His father Kafil Uddin and my father were members of 1956 cabinet formed by Suhrawardy. He (Badruddoza Chowdhury) was very close to our family. He shot to fame through a health show in television just after independence and it was Bangabandhu who told him to host the show. After 1975, he joined the BNP. But Khaleda Zia ousted her from the Bangabhaban and even made him run through the rail tracks. That was his fate!”
Chowdhury was the founding secretary general of the BNP, when it was founded in 1978 by military dictator Ziaur Rahman.
He floated his own party, Bikalpadhara Bangladesh, within a year after he was forced to resign as president in June 2002 during the BNP-Jamaat alliance was in office.
On Krishak Sramik Janata League chief Kader Siddique, Hasina said, “He too was with us. Who knows what happened to him during the 1996 parliament. He resigned from the party in an effort to be an independent MP and thought that Awami League and BNP MPs will vote for him and he will be the prime minister. We don’t know who gave him the idea and he failed to get elected as MP.”
When it came to JSD chief Rab, Hasina was in all smiles. “Mister Rab was once involved with the Chhatra League. Then he left. We used to say that he fell silent when the time was wrong and vocal during good times.
“It’s very good that he is once again vocal.”
Rab, who was the vice president of the Dhaka University Students Union (DUCSU) before independence, later joined the JaSaD.
He sided with HM Ershad during his regime and later served as a minister in the 1996 Hasina-administration. However, now he is a strong critic of the government.
On Nagorik Oikya Convener Manna, Hasina said he too was with the Awami League.
“Manna wrote very well, but most of the time it was against the Awami League. When he joined us, we asked him to write favour of us and that made him cry,” said the prime minister.