It’s a dialogue game to deteriorate crisis

S. M. MIZANUR RAHMAN, Dhaka, Oct 23: The latest development in the country’s political arena centering holding a dialogue between the ruling Awami League and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is nothing rather a game of dialogue, say experts.
 
“The secretary level dialogue between AL and BNP is nothing rather it’s a ‘game of dialogue’. And this has begun only to cheat people and intensify sufferings,” Dilara Chowdhury, a former senior professor of the Government and Politics Department of Jahangirnagar University told risingbd.com on Wednesday.
 
She added the top two leaders of AL and BNP live in North Pole and South Pole.
 
“Is it possible to bring Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia at the negotiation table in the country as they live far away from each other,” Dilara said cautioning that the country is heading toward conflicting situation like in 2006.
 
“We have the previous experience about dialogue between then ruling BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and main opposition AL general secretary Abdul Jalil,” she mentioned.  
 
It was October 6 in 2006, the then ruling BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and main opposition AL general secretary Abdul Jalil had a much-awaited dialogue over electoral reforms between the two partiers.
 
Country’s people had thought that they might have heaved a sigh of relief as the two spokesmen of BNP and AL would assure them of resolving the crisis.  
 
After the 70-minute one-to-one closed door meeting at the parliament complex when they at a joint press conference said they would sit again to continue the talks after discussing the outcome with their party high command, people got shock.
 
But their high command two political archrivals, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia had not backtracked from their rigid decision and the dialogue between Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Mohammad Abdul Jalil had been failed.
 
With the then BNP government’s rigid decision and opposition AL continuous agitation joining together, the political situation deteriorated sharply causing immense sufferings to people further..
 
Political thinkers, civil society members, business bodies as well as foreign diplomats had requested the two major political parties to show respect on each other in the greater interest of the country and its people.
 
Normal life had been disrupted across the country. Business, education and other social activities had come to a halt during that period following frequent general strike, blockade, demonstration and sit-in-programme launched by AL.
 
And at one stage thus led the country’s two most powerful ladies behind bars in connection with graft cases against them during the change over 1/11 on January 11 in 2007.
 
On October 22 in 2013, BNP’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir wrote a letter to his counterpart in Awami League Syed Ashraful Islam for holding a dialogue on BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s formula on a polls-time government and sought a way out of political crisis.
 
After received the BNP’s proposal, Syed Ashraful Islam phoned Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and talked to him.  
 
On the same day Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a public meeting in Dianjpur came down heavily on the opposition leader Khalda Zia as she rejected her (Hasina) offer to form an all-party election-time government
 
Sheikh Hasina said the country would be run as per the Constitution.
 
Earlier, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia offered an alternative formula to form a polls-time government led by a revered person comprising 10 ex-advisers from the 1996 and 2001 caretaker governments to be chosen by the ruling and opposition parties to hold an inclusive and credible election.   
 
Rejecting prime minister’s proposal opposition leader made her stand clear that her party would not contest the up coming election under Sheikh Hasina.  
 
Earlier, Sheikh Hasina said JS would remain in place, there would be no session of it from October 27 to January 24, 2014.  The constitutional term of the present government will expire on January 24, 2014 and the next general election will have to be held within its previous 90 days.

Risingbd/  smmr