BNP govt trying to establish one-party rule like AL regime: Jamaat Ameer

The BNP government is trying to enforce one-party rule like the ousted Awami League regime by heavily politicising multiple sectors of public interest, alleged Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman at a political event on Friday.

The government has appointed partisan and allied figures in the central bank, public universities, and district administrative bodies, Shafiqur said at the party get-together rally held at the Masdair Eidgah in Narayanganj city.

The Opposition Leader urged the government to abandon its “misguided policies” and return to “pro-people approach”, warning that the people will not “accept” another one-party rule in the country.

“Try to understand the voices of the youth, and do not follow the footsteps of Awami League,” he said, addressing the government.

Shafiqur called on the government to remove the alleged BNP-allied administrator from Narayanganj City Corporation to ensure fair voting in the upcoming mayoral elections.

At the time, he nominated Jamaat’s Narayanganj City Unit Chief Mawlana Md Abdul Jabbar as the party’s candidate for the mayoral polls.

Awami League’s founding member Sheikh Mujibur Rahman also tried to install one-party rule through the “BAKSAL” mechanism, but could not continue for even half-a-year as people did not welcome the approach, Shafiqur continued.

Shafiqur urged the BNP government to take lessons from history and mend its ways. People did not vote in the February general elections only to see “old wine in new bottle,” he said.

Shafiqur further said that the Awami League government used to ridicule the opposition parties with BNP facing most of the slurs, followed by Jamaat-e-Islami.

He alleged that now the tables appear have turned as BNP upon assuming power is ridiculing Jamaat in the same way Awami League did.

The ruling party members are also mocking those injured in the July Uprising that toppled Awami League as well as the martyrs’ families, Shafiqur alleged.

People do not “swallow” such tactics, Shafiqur said urging the government to stop the alleged “ridicules.”

He also urged the BNP government to avoid looting funds allocated for national budgets. The Awami League looted Tk29 crore during its 17-year undemocratic rule, he alleged.

Yet, despite the fall of the Awami League regime, corruption has “rather increased” in the country, he alleged.

He expressed gratitude to the people of Narayanganj for gifting at least one seat to the Jamaat-led opposition bloc in the 12 February general elections after overcoming the effects of massive vote buying, intimidation and vote country engineering.

If the vote counting process was as fair as the casting process, the 11-party opposition alliance would have clinched all the parliamentary seats in Narayanganj district, Shafiqur said.

Shafiqur went on saying that two votes were simultaneously held on 12 February. BNP initially did not support the plans for holding a referendum on state reform measures simultaneously with the general elections, Shafiqur said.

But later, when visiting the house of prominent July Martyr Abu Sayed, the top leadership asked the people for “only once” to vote “yes” in the referendum.

However, now the home minister claims they supported the referendum only to get their much-awaited general elections, Shafiqur said at the rally terming the practice as “betrayal with the people.”

Shafiqur asked rhetorically that how will people trust politicians if such duplicity is endorsed from the top-level of a political organisation?