The ruling Bangladesh Awami League has directed its leaders and activists at every level not to get involved in any kind of extortion centring the celebration of the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Mujib Barsho. The directives came from a joint meeting of the party held at its central office in the capital’s Banbandhu Avenue on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by the presidents and general secretaries of all the unit committees of Awami League in Dhaka division.
Speaking as the chief guest, party’s general secretary Obaidul Quader, also the Minister for Road Transport and Bridges Affairs, directed not to get involved in extortion centring the birth centenary of Bangabandhu and Mujib Barsho celebrations. The Awami League general secretary also asked the party men not to do anything that could affect the public mind negatively.
At the meeting, Obaidul Quader also admitted the party’s organisational weakness saying, “There is no scope of denial that there are many organisational weaknesses in the party. “We have to take lessons from the recent elections. Low presence of voters is one of the causes of our organisational weakness. We have to fill the gap. When the party will be stronger with its organisational capacity, the government will also be stronger”, said Obaidul Quader.
Refuting the allegations of BNP of vote rigging in the recent elections, Obaidul Quader claimed that there was no scope of vote rigging through the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). “If vote rigging took place, voter presence could have been much more”, he said. However, Obaidul Quader explained many causes behind the low presence of voters in the two city elections. He claimed the lack of transportation was one of the main reasons for the low presence of voters while a three-day long holiday and SSC exams were also other causes.
“Besides, BNP and its allies always had been trying to make people confused and the election doubtful in many ways”, said Obaidul Quader.
Talking to party leaders, Obaidul Quader directed all to work together for victory in the elections to the Chattogram City Corporation (DCC) and to five bi-elections, including Dhaka-10 constituency.
At the meeting, Awami League’s presidium members Col (Retd) Faruq Khan, Abdur Rahman and Shahjahan Khan, organisation secretary Mirza Azam, publicity secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap, office secretary Biplab Barua, central member Mostofa Jalal Mahiuddin, Dhaka city unit Awami League president Abu Ahmed Mohammad Mannafi, and Water Resources Minister Enamul Huq Shamim, among others, were present.
