‘Jamaat to play responsible role, focus on public demands’

Leader of the Opposition and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman said on Wednesday that his party would avoid disorderly conduct in parliament and instead focus on raising public demands and national issues.
However, the party would take these issues to the streets when necessary in the greater interest of the people, the Jamaat ameer told reporters at the Al-Falah auditorium, adjacent to the party’s central office in the Moghbazar area of Dhaka.
“We have decided that we will not be an opposition in the House that throws files or hurls chairs at the Speaker. We will not repeat such uncivilised behaviour in parliament,” he said, adding that throwing files and creating disorder would not solve any problem.
Regarding parliamentary proceedings, Shafiqur alleged that several notices submitted by the opposition on issues including fertiliser, electricity, law and order, child rape and murder, and rising prices of essential commodities had repeatedly been excluded from parliamentary discussions.
The Jamaat chief said his party wanted to act as a responsible opposition, even offering to form a technical team of opposition experts to help the government address national problems. 
However, he questioned what more it could do if the government did not heed its recommendations.
Both the ruling party and the opposition should abandon a ruler’s mentality and embrace a culture of serving the people, Shafiqur said, expressing his frustration over what he described as the country’s so-called media freedom.
He questioned how the media and judiciary could be truly independent when they remained subject to what he described as invisible pressure.