No external force will put BNP in power: HPM Sheikh Hasina

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said no external force will put BNP in power on a merry-go-round, but they would rather use the party against her government.

“They think someone, coming from somewhere else, will put them in power riding a merry-go-round. No one will do that. It will use (them), but won't give them power,” she said in an oblique reference to BNP's excitement following the announcement of the new US visa policy for Bangladesh.

The premier was addressing a discussion arranged by Bangladesh Awami League (AL) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city, marking the historic Six-Point Day.

She said it is the Awami League that protected democracy and voting rights and ensured the continuation of democracy in the country.

Sheikh Hasina, the president of Bangladesh Awami League, presided over the discussion.

She said: “Today, movement and struggle will be waged and we'll be ousted. It is better from the one perspective that if they (BNP) resort to arson violence and kill the people, they will not get US visa.”

She said the forces on whose tune BNP dances will destroy it. “We've nothing to do. We've nothing to think of it,” she added.

The prime minister said she has already told (the authorities concerned) to let the BNP wage movement. “Let them do whatever movement they want to do. We'll not say anything,” she said.

She, however, asked the authorities to keep their eyes open and cameras on always so that BNP can't repeat the arson violence, burning people and killing people as they did in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

She said they (BNP) may instigate and send the photographs outside the country. “They don't believe in the power of the people,” she added.

“We've to always remember that this country is ours. We will not allow anyone to play the ducks and drakes with the fate of the people of this county. No matter how much local and international pressure comes, the Bangalis don't bow down to it,” said the prime minister.

She said her party will keep the voting rights of the people protected. “It is we who brought democracy, waging movements and struggles in this country. Since there is the continuation of democracy, Bangladesh has today witnessed progress and socio-economic uplift,” she said.

AL advisory council member Amir Hossain Amu, its Presidium members Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, Matia Chowdhury, Shajahan Khan and Simeen Hussain Rimi, among others, spoke at the discussion.

On June 7 in 1966, Bangladesh's founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman launched a massive movement against the misrule of the Pakistanis on the basis of the six-point demand, the Magna Carta of the Bengalis, demanding autonomy for the then East Pakistan.