DHAKA, 1 August 2006 — Opposition leader Hasina Wajed has equated Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to Lady Macbeth and criticized her recent move to induct H.M. Ershad-led Jatiya party into the ruling alliance. “It’s like the tragedy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth when Khaleda Zia is trying forge an alliance with Ershad, whom she once accused as the killer of her husband, Ziaur Rahman,” she said.
The Awami League president made the remarks while talking to her party’s grass roots level leaders from Meherpur, Chuadanga and Narail districts at her Dhanmondi office in Dhaka city yesterday. Hasina also criticized the ruling BNP senior Joint Secretary-General Tarique Rahman for going to Jatiya Party Chairman Ershad’s house to get his support for the ruling four-party alliance.
She posed a question to Tarique on how he felt when he was received at the residence of Ershad whom his mother (Khaleda Zia) once identified as the killer of Ziaur Rahman.
The Awami League chief mentioned that in 1990, Khaleda Zia publicly called Ershad as the killer of her husband, President Zia.
Referring to recent remarks of the prime minister that the people would cast their vote in favor of the alliance government, she said: “If you are so confident about winning the next election, why are you so desperate to take Ershad in your alliance.”
Hasina urged the countrymen to remain alert about “the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami conspiracy for election engineering” to protect their voting rights. Mentioning her oft-repeated allegation that the four-party alliance came to power through vote rigging in the 2001 election, she told her partymen to protect the voting rights of people at any cost. She blasted the BNP-Jamaat alliance government for “making the country the No. 1 in corruption” and also accused the government of repressing journalists and oppressing women and children.
Mentioning the various development works and other successes, including good governance, during her tenure, the former prime minister said: “During our rule, we ensured ideal development for all people in the country.” She added: “Yes, development is also going on under this government, but such development is just for the benefit of the prime minister’s family and ‘Hawa Bhaban’ (political office of BNP).”
Hasina called for the removal of the BNP-Jamaat alliance from power to “save the country” and directed her partymen to “stay with the people as you have done in the past.” She said: “ The Awami League is the only political party, which remains with the people at all times. This time too, there will be no exception.”
